Explore Candidates → President → Ralph Nader on Government and Elections
Ralph Nader
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Government and Elections
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"It is now a well-accepted fact that our system for financing presidential and congressional campaigns is fundamentally corrupt and pernicious. The only way to ensure effective and honest representation by lawmakers is through decisive campaign finance reform, with public funding of campaigns."
Q: "First, why don’t you tell me what you think about the campaign finance subsidy program, whether you think that can survive or whether it’s a loss or not?" NADER: "...Another way [would be] to increase the amount of the subsidy, but a better way would be to try to convert as much as is constitutionally possible over to public financing by a well-promoted voluntary checkoff that goes, say, as high as $300 a person."
“The expense of political campaigns creates a clear advantage for the highest spender. Money dominates the dissemination of campaign messages, mainly waged on television in the form of sound bites. This economic stranglehold of campaigns makes politics a game for only the rich or the richly funded. This silences alternative viewpoints and turns off many voters who do not feel represented by privileged candidates.”
"We must reclaim our democracy from the accelerating grip of big-money politics and concentrated corporate media. This requires real campaign finance reform, which means public financing of public elections; some free access to ballot qualified candidates on television and radio; vigorous antitrust regulation and enforcement; ending broadcasters' free licensed use of the public airwaves; and the reversion of some organized time on our publicly owned airwaves to establish audience-controlled radio and TV networks to ensure the diversity of voices and solutions necessary for a really free press and a true civic democracy."
"Why isn't there tolerance for candidates rights the way there is a building tolerance over the last 50 years for voter rights? Because without voter rights, candidate rights don't mean much. And without candidate rights - more voices and choices - voter rights don't mean much.... So let's get over it and try to have a diverse, multiple-choice, multiple party democracy.... This bit of [calling me a] spoiler is really very astonishing. These are the two parties who have spoiled our electoral system..."
"I am outside the two-party system, and so I bear the burden of the institutionalized political bigotry against third-party candidates, and ballot access, and harassment, and obstacles, like no other Western democracy obstructs minor-party candidates and voters. There is no other Western democracy that has so many obstructions of people voting, people having their votes counted, and more candidates on the ballot. I mean it’s just not even close with Western Europe or Canada."
“Major changes are needed to ensure that every vote counts, that all voters are represented through electoral reforms like instant run-off voting, none-of-the-above options, and proportional representation, and that non-major party candidates have a chance to run for office and participate in debates, and that elections are publicly financed.”
From Nader's official campaign website: "Nader/Gonzalez favor one federal standard for federal ballot access in all of the states. Right now, each state sets its own standards and third party and independent candidates must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours for a chance to get on the ballots of the various states. Currently, ballot obstruction can consume upwards of a quarter million dollars in a federal campaign’s budget to get on the ballot in one or more states."
"Let’s face it. They have got all kinds of state ballot-access obstructions. My campaign manager is writing a book on ballot-access obstacles. And no one...could ever believe it’s as bad as it is in one state after another. The thousands of ways they can trip you up, and dismiss thousands of your signatures, and dismiss your petitioners.... It’s almost impossible, in a number of key states, to get on the ballot."
“…People know the system stinks, that it’s for sale, that it’s corrupt. But they also know that it’s so powerful that they shouldn’t waste their time trying to do something about it, because nothing will happen. So when you have an overwhelming power arrayed against non-organized people, they tend to withdraw into apathy…. So there is a kind of resignation and fatalism that is built right into the voter’s mind, which accounts, in a way, for their 'least worst' voting. Even though they vote for one or the other, it’s a 'least worst' voting mentality. But they want to be with a winner. And they know that the system is a two-party duopoly and that only one of the two is going to win.”
“Congress should amend the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. And, Governors should work expeditiously to make the full text of all state contracts, ranging from procurement of goods and services to grants, leaseholds and labor contracts, available to the public on the Internet in a clear and searchable format. Transparency is one of the core principles of representative democracy. Another way of putting it is that “information is the currency of democracy.”
“Let’s hope that Ben Bernanke really is talking about ‘transparency’ and ‘open government’—the kind of transparency that gets the message to all citizens, not just bond traders and the Wall Street insiders. What the Fed does or doesn’t do affects the jobs and economic well being of all Americans—the very future of the nation. In short, let’s ‘democratize Federal Reserve transparency.’ The steps to open government would really be ‘baby steps’ for the Federal Reserve. After all, most of the Federal government must live by ‘open government’ laws and rules, and bureaucrats with a grumble or two – still manage to survive.”
“…Senator Tom Coburn’s (R., Okla.) Bill requiring the dollar amounts and recipients of all grants and earmarked contracts be placed in a publicly accessible database is an important step toward transparency. It is indeed the least that Congress should do. On January 6, 2000, I wrote to President Bill Clinton and asked him to issue an Executive Order setting procedures for every agency of the federal government to place its contracts online…. On September 10, 2001, I wrote to Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., then the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, urging him to give taxpayers access to the full text of government contracts…. Increased transparency regarding government contracting is good for a more competitive procurement process, the taxpayer and our democracy.”
“We can trust the same parties and the same institutions to reform themselves, to bring change where they have promised it for decades, and not delivered. Or we can take matters into our own hands, reform the system, and reclaim our rights to legislate. It is in our name, after all – ‘We The People’ – that the powers of the Constitution itself are delegated. The way it works is pretty simple. Whenever there’s an issue people feel strongly about—health care, the war in Iraq, election laws—people can force a national vote on a proposal for change…. [A National Initiative] would take significant power out of the hands of lobbyists, White House aides, network television executives, congressional committee chairmen, and other particular elites—and spread it over the American people."
“We have a government of big business, by big business and for big business, even if more of these businesses are nominally moving their state charters to Bermuda-like tax escapes. ‘Corporate socialism’ -- the privatization of profit and the socialization of risks and misconduct -- is displacing capitalist canons. This condition prevents an adaptable capitalism, served by equal justice under law, from delivering higher standards of living and enlarging its absorptive capacity for broader community and environmental values. Civic and political movements must call for a decent separation of corporation and state.”
"Here, the problem historically has been the many obstacles which governments have placed in the way of Americans. Poll taxes, literacy tests, race discrimination against minorities, intimidation by political machines and other stumbling blocks were prevalent not all that many years ago. Presently, overly restrictive registration and residential requirements in many states remain entrenched…. Making it easier to vote by removing these hurdles, keeping polls open longer or having Election Day as a holiday or on a weekend, and improving the mechanics for administering the voting process could attract more people to the polls."
When asked in a survey to "indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform," Nader indicated support for "designating Election Day as a national holiday."
“The criminal recidivist regime of Bush and Cheney is the most impeachable regime in American history…. In five areas they’re impeachable: 1) Criminal war of aggression that was undeclared in Iraq; 2) Systemic torture; 3) …Snooping on Americans without judicial warrant, that’s a five year jail term, that’s a first-class penalty; 4) Incarcerating Americans without filing charges, denying them habeas corpus; and 5) The signing statements by Bush, he set a record…. After they leave office, they are still subject, Bush and Cheney, to the criminal laws. They can still be prosecuted…and we recommend [district attorneys] all over the country to rustle up their statute books and convene grand juries.”
"Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least five categories of repeated, defiant 'high crimes and misdemeanors', which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The sworn oath of members of Congress is to uphold the Constitution. Failure of the members of Congress to pursue impeachment of President Bush is an affront to the founding fathers, the Constitution, and the people of the United States."
“In the name of fighting stateless terrorism, George W. Bush is looming as the American Caesar running roughshod over the civil liberties of the American people who have turned against him in ever larger majorities…. Unbridled Presidential authority is un-American whether in peacetime, wartime or fighting a gang whose exaggerated power has served Bush and Cheney very well politically. How better to silence the Democrats, stifle or chill public dissent, distract attention from domestic necessities, until their post-Katrina debacle, enrich their donating corporate buddies with military contracts and concentrate more lawless power in the White House at the expense of the courts and Congress than by breaking our constitutional system of separation of powers?”
From a joint statement of principles agreed to by Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin, and Ron Paul: "We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders."
When asked in a survey to "indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform," Nader indicated support for "limiting the President's use of signing statements in order to prevent an alternative interpretation of the bill."
“Most Americans do not know, and many would find it hard to believe, that under our current system D.C. residents are second-class citizens. The District is denied local control of government. Congress must approve the District's budget, and can override any action of the city government. At the same time, District residents do not even have one voting representative in the Congress that controls them. D.C. is effectively a colony, with all local decisions directly subject to change by a Congress largely out of touch with local realities.... The voters of the District of Columbia should be allowed to hold a referendum to choose their future status. With legislative and appropriations delays, regular governing confusion, and congressional interference eliminated, the District would be more able to exercise local control and deal with its pressing problems. Eliminate taxation without representation!”
"Currently, the US electoral system is in crisis; less than half the potential voters vote - the lowest in the Western, industrialized world. The winner-take-all election system often pushes voters to vote their fears and not their beliefs - or to simply not vote at all.... [Instant runoff-voting] will help fix these problems and will allow more citizens to vote for the candidates they truly support.... The system of IRV encourages electoral competition. Because each voter does not have to worry about 'spoiling' the election or 'wasting' their vote on a less popular 3rd party candidate, more citizens will be encouraged to participate in elections - both as voters and as candidates. Encouraging more candidates to run will foster a broader political debate and create a more engaged citizenry."