A call for clean elections
October 5th, 2006
By Tom Crawford
Capitol Impact

Rep. Gail Buckner (D-Jonesboro) says the current elections process in Georgia is clogged with big money and misleading statements, and could stand some cleaning up.

"It leaves our citizens with the feeling the democratic process has broken down," said Buckner, the Democratic nominee for secretary of state, at a capitol news conference.

Buckner said if she's elected secretary of state, she'll ask the Legislature to adopt a "Clean and Fair Elections Act" that would create a citizens commission to begin discussing possible changes in the current campaign finance and election laws.

One of the changes she is proposing is a limit, possibly in the range of $50 to $100, on the size of campaign donations that a candidate could accept from each contributor, along with a system for public funding of campaigns.

"The average citizen cannot hope to compete with the contributions of huge corporations," Buckner said. "Putting a limit on donations is going to level the playing field for everyone in the process."

She said political campaigns should be focused around "robust discussions" of issues and philosophies, but that these discussions should also be based on "verifiable facts" and not mud-slinging.

"There's a way to do that without getting down in the ditch and getting everybody covered with mud," Buckner said.

Buckner did not make any comments, clean or otherwise, about her Republican opponent in the secretary of state's race, Fulton County Commission Chair Karen Handel. But she allowed that she has not put any limits on the size of contributions flowing into her campaign fund.

"I am accepting donations of all amounts," she admitted. "This is the process we live under now."