• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Campaign Finance>
  3. fec>

Are health care and a living wage too much for congressional candidates to ask?

Beth Rotman
April 09, 2021
​​Nabilah Islam

Nabilah Islam ran for a House seat in Georgia last year, despite lacking both a living wage and health insurance.

Courtesy Nabilah Islam

Rotman is director of money in politics and ethics for Common Cause, one of the nation's oldest democracy reform advocacy organizations. From 2006 to 2011 she was the first director of Connecticut's public campaign financing program and before that was deputy general counsel of the New York City Campaign Finance Board.


When working-class Americans embrace the possibilities born of democracy, it often highlights that our government of, by and for the people is a work in progress. This is certainly the case when it comes to empowering working-class Americans to compete for a congressional seat. Just ask Nabilah Islam.

Islam ran for Congress in Georgia last year without a living wage or medical insurance. The Federal Election Commission then lacked the quorum required to issue an advisory opinion, requested by the candidate, as to whether she could use campaign funds to pay for health insurance.

So Islam had to go without coverage while campaigning for elected office last spring, during the first surge of the Covid-19 pandemic. (She finished third in the Democratic primary for an open House seat north of Atlanta.)

This scenario was unsafe for her. And it was unhealthy for our democracy.

Congressional candidates who represent the diversity of America — Islam only recently turned 30 and would have been the state's first Muslim member of Congress — must be able to seek office in Washington without worrying about a living wage or health insurance. Only 2 percent of the members of Congress have working-class backgrounds, and millionaires make up more than half of Congress, even though they amount to fewer than 5 percent of the national population.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Consequently, public policy decisions made by Congress too often reflect the interests and preferences of the wealthy instead of the priorities and views of the vast majority of Americans. Historical economic inequity along the lines of race and gender has translated to a lack of political representation for Americans of color and women.

Big Money still determines who can run for office and win, and what elected officials must work on when they get into office. Possibility is born of democracy, but Big Money has our democracy in a stranglehold. We must make it easier for everyday Americans to represent us in Washington.

Islam is now petitioning the FEC, which finally has a quorum so it can resume regulating the campaign finance system, to make clear that candidates may tap their campaign accounts to pay for health insurance. She is also asking the agency to strengthen rules that have long allowed candidates to draw a limited salary from their campaigns while running for federal office; Islam wants the regulations altered to include a living-wage floor as part of the the salary formula to make the funds available from the beginning of a candidate's campaign.

This would be a great start toward elevating opportunities for working-class Americans to run for Congress, and my organization supports her petition enthusiastically.

We need to go even further. Congress must pass the For the People Act, which passed the House last month as HR 1 and is now awaiting debate in the Senate as S 1, because the legislation would help curb the dominance of wealthy special interests drowning out the voices of working-class people.

Our system is out of balance and wealthy special interests now use their power to amplify their own voices and drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

Small-donor programs such as the one included in the For the People Act, and the one I led in Connecticut, work to combat these inequities and elevate the policies that favor large swaths of everyday Americans. (The legislation in Congress would establish a voluntary public financing system for congressional candidates, under which donations up to $200 would be matched six-fold, so long as the candidates agreed to forswear almost all Big Money contributions.)

Following implementation of the Connecticut program, the state became the first in the nation to enact sweeping health care coverage for its service workers.

Real people have been excluded from democracy by a disproportionate number of millionaire members of Congress. Working Americans embody our nation's hope, possibility and promise.

These are the voices we need seeking elective office in Washington and across the country, and it is time we take every step necessary to end the millionaire's club. Nabilah Islam's efforts at the FEC are a great start.

From Your Site Articles
  • Impotent FEC leaves public to enforce campaign laws - The Fulcrum ›
  • Senate revives FEC by approving three new commissioners - The ... ›
  • Staff wants more people of color named to the FEC - The Fulcrum ›
  • Women voters put economy as top priority - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Nabilah Islam to head Muslim American PAC | News ... ›
  • Atlanta may have its own AOC ›
  • Nabilah Islam (@NabilahforGA07) | Twitter ›
  • Nabilah Islam (@nabilahforga07) • Instagram photos and videos ›
fec

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
15h

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Benjamin Clary
15h

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
15h

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Our Staff
03 February

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Rabbi Charles Savenor
03 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February
Videos

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff

Video: We need more bipartisan commitment to democracy: Pennsylvania governor

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
15h

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February

Podcast: Collage: The promise of Black History Month

Our Staff
01 February
Recommended
Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Government
Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Government
Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcasts
Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take
Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Civic Ed