Democracy Matters is a new student-led group on campus.

We are a part of the national Democracy Matters organization, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that has chapters in 23 states and is growing every year.

Democracy Matters teaches students how to be active about the issues they care about and how to be engaged in the democratic process.

We focus on the issue of money in politics. In our current political system, the majority of politicians are financed by private businesses, individuals and special interests. Only about 0.25 percent of the population in America donates $200 or more to political campaigns. This 0.25 percent tends to be from the wealthiest 1 percent of society, which means they are not representative of the majority of society. Therefore, politicians respond more to the concerns of wealthy donors and special interests than they do to the concerns of voters. The privately funded campaign system violates the ideal of equality in a democracy because only those with money can contribute, so they gain more influence than a regular voter.

Politicians who take part in privately financed elections also end up wasting taxpayers’ money by giving tax cuts and paybacks to their contributors. For example, in the 2006 Department of Defense budget, a congressman added an earmark for a contract for the C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet manufactured by Boeing, despite the fact that the Pentagon wanted to discontinue its production. Not surprisingly, this congressman had received more money from Boeing in 2006 than any other member of Congress.

Those politicians that are elected also end up spending between 25 percent and 50 percent of their time in office dialing for dollars and raising money for their next campaign, instead of focusing entirely on the needs of their constituents.

What all this boils down to is the fact that our government is responding more to money than it is to people. Democracy Matters wants to shift the power back to the people, where it belongs.

The alternative to private financing is public financing of campaigns. Public financing is voluntary. Those who choose to take part in it agree to not receive money from private individuals and special interests in return for public dollars.

Public financing has been successfully implemented in one form or another in Maine, Arizona, Albuquerque, Connecticut, Portland and North Carolina. Public financing is based on the fact that lawmakers will only be beholden to issues we care about when we fund their elections.

Democracy Matters is trying to make public financing a reality through our efforts to raise awareness of the disadvantages of private financing. We focus on the specific issues that are affected by private financing of elections. This includes issues such as the environment, women’s rights, civil rights, the War in Iraq, corruption in the government, taxes, student loans, health care, education and many more, all of which cannot be successfully acted on until we get rid of private financing.

Some of Democracy Matters activities include: Movie nights, tabling, rallies, public lectures, professor-led panels, lobbying elected officials, petitioning, issue campaigns and more. Things that we are currently organizing are a street theater performance called “White House for Sale,” a movie night showing “An Inconvenient Truth” with discussion on how environmental policy is affected by private financing, and call-in days to state legislators.

If you are interested in taking part in your democracy, come to a Democracy Matters meeting.

Together, we can take back our democracy. Change Elections to Change America.