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.