Candidates who have answered the question
• Vice President Joseph Biden (D)
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R)
• Fmr. Gov. George Pataki (R)
• Sen. Rand Paul (R)
• Fmr. Gov. Rick Perry (R)
• Sen. Marco Rubio (R)
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I)
Candidates who have been asked the question but have not yet responded/no committment either way.
• Carly Fiorina
Candidates and prospective candidates who have not yet been asked the question
John Bolton (R), Jeb Bush (R), Ben Carson (R), Chris Christie (R), Hillary Clinton (D), Bob Ehrlich (R), Jim Gilmore (R), Mike Huckabee (R), Bobby Jindal (R), Peter King (R), Martin O'Malley (D), Mike Pence (R), Rick Santorum (R), Donald Trump (R), Scott Walker (R), Elizabeth Warren (D), Jim Webb (D).
• See Also: New England Cable News NH Primary Candidate Tracker
Candidates who have answered the question
"The simple truth is we can't have a government that fights for the middle class if it's owned by the big money… Going forward we need a different way. We need leaders with the courage to stand up to this mountain of money, and we need voters who will stand with these leaders [to] take it on.."
-- Vice President Joe Biden (D) - 2/25/2015 - UNH Law School
“I think when it comes to campaign finance reform it's one of the most misunderstood issues in terms of the debate....
I believe in free speech and the First Amendment, which means everyone here has a right to speak out in politics as effectively as possible," Cruz said. "To speak out and make your views known, whether that is standing on a street corner on a soap box, whether that is printing out a yard sign, whether that is spending money to run a radio ad or a TV ad, effectively communicating....
So in the Senate, I introduced legislation that I called "The SuperPAC Elimination Act of 2014." What it did was very simple. It eliminated contribution limits from individuals to any candidate. And then it required immediate disclosure within 24 hours. As a practical matter, if we did that, SuperPACs would go away...
Money absolutely can be speech. From day one. ...Money has always been integral to speech. You take something like the Federalist Papers, the beginning of our country. We printed up speech. That takes money."
-- Sen. Ted Cruz - 3/15/2015 - Barrington, NH
"There are probably 50 people in the country you've gotta go to to support you because of unlimited giving… We're gonna lose a democracy if we don't have some control over the money. The most influential people in the country are gonna be the ones with the most money… I believe in transparency and no one person should be able to give so much money that you feel like you owe them everything… I would support a change in the system [amendment] if it would include the unions."
-- Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R)-SC - 3/10/2015
"[I would support a law that says if] you serve one day in the House or Senate... there's a lifetime ban on you ever being a lobbyist in Washington, D.C."
-- George Pataki (R), 53rd Governor of New York - 2/27/2015 - WMUR
"I do agree with you. I think special interests are a problem, and they have too much influence in Washington.
One of the ideas I've had is that when we give out contracts to people, let's say that you get a billion dollar contract in Washington, I think you could have a clause in the contract that limits what you can do. There are analogies for how we can do this. So, for example, if I'm in the military, and I wanted to be involved in campaigns, I'm not allowed to stand up in my uniform. I have an agreement, sort of like an employment agreement, that I'm limited in certain campaign activities.
If I'm a federal employee, there's the Hatch Act that says that between 8-5, I'm supposed to be at my job, not out campaigning. There are limits on what you can do and you accept these voluntarily if you accept to be a soldier or if you accept to be a federal employee.
I think we could have rules on if we accept federal money through a contract, you voluntarily give up certain things. If we just make it mandatory pre-emptively, like everyone, the [Supreme] Court has ruled that that's an infringement on speech, and I don't think any of those would pass muster. The way I'm thinking about it could actually pass muster, because it would simply be part of federal contracts. It would have to apply equally to big business and to big labor in order for it to get through [Congress] but I think it has a chance. ."
-- Sen. Rand Paul, (R)-KY - 3/22/2015
Conway Daily Sun, Tuesday March 24, 2015, p.9
Q: Do you support public campaign financing?
A: “The public doesn’t have any money. That’s a secret that’s getting out.”
Paul said the extremely wealthy can spend unlimited amounts of money on their campaigns, and it would give them a big advantage. Challengers have to spend as much as 10 times more than an incumbent to make up for lack of name recognition.
“So while money can have a corrupting influence, money can also have a corrective influence if it’s given to people challenging an incumbent.”
""Well, it's not just the corroding [sic] influence of big money. It's also the inability to desire how to fix things. How to address the challenges that we have.
The reason that I think we [Republicans] will not nominate a person who doesn't have executive experience, We'll [Americans] be eight years off selecting a young, inexperienced United States Senator [Obama] who had no experience of running anything. No experience of having to deal with challenges and coming up with solutions. ."
-- Fmr. Gov. Rick Perry - 3/13/2015
"Big business supports [big government] regulations because they know it keeps an innovative competitor out of the marketplace."
-- Sen. Marco Rubio, (R)-FL - 3/11/2015 - Hollis GOP event
"We should require better disclosure rules. We should make shareholders approve corporations' political spending. We should provide public financing of elections, but entrenched money interests have thwarted that for decades."
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I)-VT - 3/21/2012 - Huffington Post
Candidates who have been asked the question but have not yet responded/no committment either way.
Carly Fiorina (R) - former U.S. Senate candidate, California.