Government Integrity
Democracy Program
Founded in 1995, the Brennan Center for Justice is a public interest legal organization, affiliated with New York University's Law School, with programs focused on democracy, poverty, and criminal justice. This grant provides operating support for the Brennan Center's Democracy Program in three interrelated project areas: Voting Rights and Elections, Campaign Finance Reform, and Fair Courts.
Small Donor Research Project
This grant supports a research project to investigate what policies stimulate small donor participation in elections, what role these donations play in campaigns, and whether small donor participation gives a boost to other forms of political and civic participation beyond giving.
Making Public Financing Work
The Center uses research, advocacy, information technology, and education to improve the fairness of governmental policies and processes and to help implement effective public policy reforms. This grant supports a research project that will analyze public financing systems in Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin and make recommendations for strengthening those systems to reflect best practices.
The Center for Political Accountability is a non-partisan organization that seeks to bring transparency and accountability to the political contribution policies and practices of U.S. companies. This grant supports an expansion of the Center’s efforts to promote responsible political behavior by engaging new companies, investors, and institutions, including the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Common Cause/CT: Making Citizens’ Election Program Work
This grant will support the Connecticut chapter of Common Cause (CC/CT) in its efforts to ensure successful implementation of Connecticut’s new landmark campaign finance law in its first test in the 2008 election cycle.
Strategic Planning: State Campaigns for Public Financing of Judicial Elections
Justice at Stake is a nationwide, nonpartisan partnership of more than 30 judicial, legal, and citizen organizations that works to keep courts fair and impartial through citizen education, civic engagement, and campaign finance reform. This planning grant supports assessments of the feasibility of initiating state public financing campaigns in Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
MAPLight.org (MAPLight) was launched in 2006 to maintain the first publicly accessible and interactive database to connect information about campaign contributions with legislators’ votes. JEHT support will expand MAPLight’s work beyond California and the U.S. Congress to additional states and localities and to identify the advocacy groups and other organizations which can best use this resource.
Three Electoral Research Reports
The Institute researches and documents campaign finance at the state level. This grant supports research projects exploring funding and public policy patterns for ballot measures in state elections, the impact of small contributions in state elections, and disclosure of independent expenditures in state elections.
Full Circle Transparency
The National Institute on Money in State Politics acquires, analyzes and reports on political contribution data in all 50 states. The Full Circle Transparency project supports the production and dissemination of information through data and analysis that documents the impact of money on politics in states, not just related to specific elections, but on an ongoing basis at all points in the political process.
