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Ellen Miller

Ellen Miller is the publisher of TomPaine.com. She is a former senior fellow at The American Prospect and the Moving Ideas Network.

A public interest advocate with over 30 years experience in Washington, D.C., Ms.
Miller's career spans early work with Ralph Nader at the Center for Responsive
Law and the Center for Auto Safety, to positions on Capitol Hill at the House
Intelligence Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and the
founding and direction of two nationally prominent organizations in the field of
money and politics – The Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign.
Before joining The Prospect, she served as president of Youth Venture, a
nonprofit focused on creating a dramatic change in the role of young people in
contemporary American society.

A nationally-recognized expert on America's campaign finance system, Ms. Miller
is well-known as a public speaker, commentator, and writer on a range of issues.
 She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including Earth
Action, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the Family Foundation, and lives
in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Richard, and their two daughters, Anne and
Elizabeth.

Recent Articles

Pay-to-Play Conventions

Ellen MillerDec 19, 2001



The Republicans had their time. Then AT&T, Lockheed Martin, and Microsoft packed up the trade show we still call a "political convention" and moved it over to Los Angeles.


This year's conventions will cost an estimated $85 million--$25 million more than they did in 1996--and the long list of corporate sponsors to the convention's "host committees" reads like a "who's who" of companies whose profit margins are deeply affected by government decision making.

Clean Elections, How To

Public frustration with political influence peddling hasn't been this high since Watergate, and thanks to Maine we finally have an example of how to do reform right.

Ellen MillerDec 19, 2001

The 1996 elections for Congress and the presidency cost close to
$2 billion, and produced a turnout of just 48 percent. Some say
the late-breaking Democratic money scandals cost the Democrats
the House. There is little question that the price we all paid
was increasing disdain for the political system. We now have a
rare political opportunity as Congress reconvenes to revisit proposals
and strategies for campaign finance reform.

The Care and Feeding of Fat Cats

Ellen MillerDec 19, 2001



Last issue ["Labor's Loss," August 14, 2000], we described how, in the race for campaign dollars, business is outpacing labor by an increasingly wide margin: eight to one in 1994, 11 to one in 1996 and 1998, and 15 to one in the 2000 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The contribution gap between business and labor is nearly half a billion dollars wide: $521 million to $35 million.

Swearing Off Soft Money - Sort Of

Ellen MillerDec 19, 2001


Rescuing Politics from Money

Ellen MillerDec 19, 2001

This special double issue of the Prospect focuses on money and politics. It is part of a continuing series on this set of topics, which is central to the project of reviving progressive politics.

In this century, there have been successive waves of reform, beginning with the Progressive Era, which sought to constrain the influence of big money on democratic deliberation. The first of these, in 1907, actually enacted a law that banned corporate contributions to political campaigns. But at roughly 20-year intervals, special-interest money has found a way to breach the barriers. Then a new wave of scandals engenders a new set of reforms, and the cycle begins anew.

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