Both presidential candidates failed during Monday night’s debate

Following Monday evening’s presidential debate, Issue One Executive Director Nick Penniman issued the following statement: 

“Both candidates failed tonight to lead on a critical issue that the American people want to hear more about — reducing the power money has over our politics and government. In a recent national poll, Americans across all demographics said this is a top five concern. They deserve to know how the next president will decrease the dysfunction in Washington, starting with making politicians less reliant on dialing for dollars, deep-pocketed donors and outside groups.

In 90 minutes, neither candidate could prescribe a plan that would empower more Americans of all incomes, backgrounds and political persuasions to run for public office. Amidst a heated debate about national security, economic and trade policies, there was no discussion about the very thing that often greases the skids in bad policymaking – money in our political system.”

Earlier Monday morning, former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman and former Democratic Governor Bob Kerrey wrote in TIME about the need for both candidates to address campaign finance issues in tonight’s debate. They are members of our ReFormers Caucus, a bipartisan group of more than 150 former elected officials working to fix our broken campaign finance system.