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JON SHURE
PRESIDENT
NEW JERSEY POLICY PERSPECTIVE
Jon is president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization that conducts research on state
policy issues. He has been involved in New Jersey public
affairs for more than 25 years. He was a reporter for The
Record newspaper in Bergen County and has served as Press
Secretary for the US House Subcommittee on Commerce, Competitiveness
and Consumer Protection under Congressman Jim Florio. He
was Press Secretary for Florio's 1989 campaign for governor
and Communications Director for Florio's term as governor.
Jon is a co-author of the Agenda New Jersey Report.
Jon says campaign reform is the need to reduce the influence
of money in campaigns and make the system more accessible
and meaningful for voters. He says that New Jersey was a
leader in terms of having public funding for gubernatorial
elections, but now we need to look at doing the same for
legislative races. We need to close loopholes that let people
and organizations give big donations to legislative leaders
and to parties, in ways that circumvent the limits on what
can be given to an individual candidate. He also strongly
believes that people who do business with state and local
government should be banned from making donations to candidates
for those offices or severely restricted.
Jon also believes that consideration should be given to
allow the public the right to vote on initiatives that would
change campaign funding laws and laws dealing with government
ethics and conduct of elections. Overall, he says that the
voting process needs reforms including longer polling hours,
easier access to absentee ballots, and registration nearer
Election Day than is currently allowed, and letting criminal
offenders vote.
STACI BERGER
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
NJ Citizen Action
As program director for NJ Citizen Action, Staci provides
leadership and strategy for issue campaigns and outreach
projects on health care and family issues, campaign finance
reform and lead poisoning prevention. Staci has developed
board, affiliate and foundation support to launch a Fair
and Clean Elections campaign for comprehensive campaign
finance reform.
Staci says that there is a need for the state legislature
to address the issue of campaign reform in a proactive and
comprehensive way in an effort to level the playing fields
between candidates. Her organization, NJ Citizen Action
(NJCA), has been running a campaign to build statewide support
for Fair and Clean Elections. NJCA is moving forward to
create a comprehensive, voluntary and constitutional system
of public financing for statewide elections similar to reforms
enacted in Arizona, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont. Under
this system, candidates can choose to receive full public
funding from voters, so it is entirely within the free speech
rulings made by the Supreme Court.
Staci says that campaign reform is critical in implementing
the rest of citizen action since you can't address the issues
of prescription drugs, lead poisoning or better health care
unless you have elected officials who are focused and dedicated
to citizens. She feels that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform
Act will impact campaigns on the state level, specifically
in the area of soft money. She believes that with the Act,
we will see more soft money in New Jersey. However, it is
not the kind of legislation that is going to change things
dramatically in the immediate future.
Staci says that since recent campaigns have been addressed
to mass media, candidates seem to be faster to go negative
than to focus on the real issues at hand. As a result, it
is harder for voters to connect with the candidates themselves
and instead they are connecting with the infomercials. Overall,
citizens are disconnected from the political system as a
whole.
MARK MURPHY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
FUND FOR NEW JERSEY
Mark M. Murphy is the Executive Director of The Fund for
New Jersey, an endowed private foundation furthering the
exploration of state public policy issues impacting our
poorest communities. This includes supporting efforts to
get relevant information to the public, to encourage and
empower citizen participation in decision-making, to analyze
alternative approaches to significant social problems, and
to oversee government activity.
Mr. Murphy served as founding president of the Council
of New Jersey Grantmakers, and serves as a trustee of the
New Jersey Health Initiatives, and Childrens' Futures initiatives
of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Princeton
Area Community Foundation. He is the recipient of a Roothbert
Fellowship at Princeton University, and has served on the
advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public
and International Affairs. Mark has received the Equal Justice
Award of New Jersey Legal Services, a Leadership Award from
the Hispanic Women Leadership Institute at Rutgers University,
is a graduate of the Leadership New Jersey program, and
is a former W. K. Kellogg Foundation National Fellow.
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