I live in Connecticut, and people should be aware that we have a great campaign finance system here (best in the country, IMHO) that's made an enormous differen

I live in Connecticut, and people should be aware that we have a great campaign finance system here (best in the country, IMHO) that's made an enormous difference reducing the power of lobbyists at our State Capitol. To show how the system works, I'll give an example. A typical State Senate campaign runs a budget of about $100k. Under our Clean Elections system, participating candidates must raise $15k in small contributions of $100 or less per person. They then qualify for a grant from the state of $85k to round out their budget. The grants are funded by state auction of unclaimed property and the like, not by taxpayer dollars (though even if we didn't do it this way, clean elections would still be a worthy thing for taxpayers to support). This system is purely voluntary, but 75% of all candidates participated in the last state election. Our current governor was the first ever elected under this system. Of course, this kind of reform doesn't happen out of the blue. A previous governor of our found himself thrown in jail for bribes and corruption. Afterward, both parties found themselves competing to "out-reform" the other, and this campaign finance system was the result. Politically active folks I know tell me that lobbyists at the State Capitol in Hartford are less than half of their former selves. They still exist, but don't hold nearly as much power as they once did, when we called our state "Corrupticut." Our system isn't perfect, but I think it's far better than anything that's done in any other state. More states should move in our direction, but that will require overcoming their own lobbyists first. Not easy, but we are proof that it's possible. Sadly, many outsiders don't like our system. The US Supreme Court also might destroy it (and a similar system in Arizona). It would be like Citizens United all over again. But don't just take my word on all of this. Here's more info for the interested: http://prospect.org/article/clean-election-state http://prospect.org/article/clean-election-state