- Date
- April 2001
As public debate continues on campaign finance reform, the Open Society Institute, part of the Soros Foundations Network, debuted the premier issue of a publication series set to explore innovative ideas and strategies for social change.
Tackling campaign finance reform in the inaugural issue of Ideas for an Open Society, Mark Schmitt, director of the Governance and Public Policy program at OSI and former policy director for Senator Bill Bradley, examines the impact of the current campaign finance system on fair elections, political speech, and the First Amendment and offers recommendations for reform in his piece, "Beyond McCain-Feingold: A New Approach to Money in Politics."
"While not abandoning the quest to make elections fairer and money less decisive, reformers will have to recognize that the campaign finance system is embedded deeply in a rich and complex world of political speech, all or most of which is dependent on money in some way, and also strongly protected by the spirit and letter of the First Amendment," Schmitt says in his article.
Also included in the issue is, "Democratizing the Airwaves," a piece by former Washington Post reporter Paul Taylor, current executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns and an OSI grantee. Taylor argues that television broadcasters should provide time for candidate-centered discussion in order to decrease the pressure for financial contributions needed to pay exorbitant campaign television bills.
The new Ideas series, to be released six times a year, will provide a forum for promoting provocative ideas and strategies to advance open society values. Written by OSI program directors, trustees, and grantees, upcoming issues will focus on reproductive heath and choice, overreliance on incarceration, reform of urban high schools, and other OSI projects.