Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:17 PM

Waterston Pushes Public Finance On The Hill

Nick Nyhart, president of Public Campaign, and actor Sam Waterston. (Credit: Beth Sussman)

When he's not playing politically minded Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy on "Law & Order," actor Sam Waterston is a political advocate himself. Waterston brought his clout to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to promote publicly financing congressional campaigns, an issue he has worked on with a coalition of organizations.

Waterston met with 26 members of Congress -- including Reps. John Larson, D-Conn., Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Robert Brady, D-Pa. -- about the Fair Elections Now Act, which the House Administration Committee met about today. The bill would give congressional candidates public funding if they first acquire a set number of small donations in-state. House candidates would receive $900,000 to be split 40-60 between the primary and general after raising at least $50,000 from 1,500 in-state contributors in donations under $100 each. The funding for candidates for Senate would vary depending on the size of the state but would follow a similar formula.

NationalJournal.com's Beth Sussman spoke with Waterston on Wednesday. Edited excerpts follow.

NJ: What were you doing to promote this bill on the Hill today? Were lawmakers receptive to your message?

Waterston: We met with a whole lot of congressmen and women and did a TV interview for a local television station. We did a webcast for Congressman Larson and another webcast for Common Cause....

A lot of people we met were already co-sponsors of the bill. I would say to a person they all were fed up with the current system as it impacted their own lives and careers -- the amount of time it took, how demeaning it was to the process to not only have to win votes, but also to have to curry money favors.... But the real benefit of this bill, of course, would be for all the rest of us, because 25 percent of our representatives' time is now going to raising money, and they would have one-quarter more time to devote to the things that we elected them to deal with. We would be able to be confident that we were getting their best judgments and that their votes reflected their best judgments based on the issues and not because somebody had corrupted their vote with money.

NJ: Why is this a piece of legislation that lawmakers should be focusing on right now?

Waterston: It bears on all the other things they're trying to deal with. Health care legislation is being affected or appears to be being affected by the influence of insurance companies and large health care businesses. The financial rescue plan, if it turns out that more government help is needed -- will people's response to that be affected by the fact that there appears to be or there was influence both in the creation of the situation that required the rescue and then in the rescue itself and then in the regulation afterwards? Energy, fisheries policy -- you go up and down the list, there is a lot to do, and it would clean out the pipes a little bit if money were not such an issue -- big donor money. It would open up this wide avenue for small donor money, which would surely give us more democracy.

NJ: Despite federal campaign finance reforms for presidential elections, the amount of money going into presidential campaigns has continued to rise significantly. Why would this bill be any different in reforming the system?

Waterston: It's simpler. It leans heavily on this small-donor qualifying part. It remains open to small-donor contributions as the process goes along. It's administratively simpler. What's OK and what's not OK is ever so much clearer. And it passes constitutional muster, so it's not likely to be chucked by the courts.

NJ: Some critics have said it would be difficult for average citizens to get funding because of the number of small donations they would have to get. Is that true? Could this end up benefiting incumbents?

Waterston: In Maine, where a similar bill is in place, a woman who is a waitress in Lewiston whose costumers knew she had a lot of opinions because she shared them in her job told her that she ought to run. She ran under this system. She's a single mother, and she's now in the Senate in Maine on a committee that oversees child poverty questions.

It gives more access to people who wouldn't have dreamt of entering the political process, but it does not automatically can all the people who are already in it. It makes it a more level playing field for everybody.... At every stage of the game, including qualifying for the program at all, you're sent to the people and you have to prove your creds with the people, and then you can cash that in. You have to start with them, and then you have to keep going back to them to get more money.

NJ: You were involved with Unity08 during the campaign. How does this initiative tie in to your advocacy for non- or bipartisan tickets?

Waterston: Remember back when everybody agreed that the system was very badly broken? It was only one [presidential] election cycle back. The older you get and the more you read the newspapers and the more things you care about that can only be fixed by some type of government action, the more you are driven to how it gets done. How do they elect people? How do the people who get elected get their money? How does the process actually happen in the Congress? So then you're driven back on issues like this that really should inspire people to go to the barricades because they are so fundamental to all the other things they care about.

NJ: Is there a chance that your character on "Law & Order" will be mentioning this issue on the show?

Waterston: No. I'm proud to say that where my views and Jack McCoy's views are coincident and where they are not is a complete mystery and will remain so forever. They are two different things. I'm speaking for myself now, and he speaks for himself.