90 Day Sessions
I’ve done a little reading at Alaskans For Clean Elections. I’ll admit, I warming to the idea. Like many others, I was put off by money going to candidates that I wouldn’t support. But now, I’m beginning to see it another way. The money is really being paid to improve the system. If public financing can improve the system to produce better candidates, better representatives and better government, it’s something we should at least consider.
Over the years I’ve known a number of people that would have made excellent elected officials. One of the things that stopped them was needing PAC and Party support. I think public financing could give us better people and more diverse candidates.
It follows if we can improve the candidates, then we should see an improvement of our representatives as well. Perhaps more frequent challengers to the incumbents, I still like term limits though.
A few election cycles down the road we could see the majority of both houses elected in clean elections. The majority of both houses beholden only to the citizens they represent. Imagine the possibilities. So yeah, I think it may be worth it invest in the system to improve results.
I’m going to do some reading at Arizona’s Citizens Clean Election Commission website. Looks like a good place to start.
With or without “Clean Elections” I have another idea I’ve been harping on here.
Excuse me if you’ve read this before.
A candidate may only accept donations from registered voters eligible to vote for that candidate.
I would be more likely to support a candidate that would make a commitment to that ideal.
I don’t see the “Freedom of Expression” argument here. We already place limits on what the candidates can legally accept. I’m just suggesting that we use my phrase above (or similar with the intended meaning) as THE rule for donations to candidates. Unless you mean that you want to remove all restrictions on candidates in the name of freedom of expression.
Bottom line is that we have to do something to change the status quo.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)
Alaskan Best Search - Campaign Finance and Election Reform
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
A better idea than restricting political contributions is to tax them at 40% to be distributed, in proportion to their raised funds, among opponents.
Thus, if we all raise $100 we will all end up with $100 to spend.
But if you raise $250, I raise $99 and they raise $1,
Then $100 or yours gets distributed $99 to me and $1 to them.
$39 of mine goes to you and $0.16 to them.
And $0.29 of theirs goes to you and $0.11 to me.
In total, you end up with around $190, I end up with around $158 and they end up with around $1.76.
Was raising two and a half times the money that I did worth having only a 20% money advantage over me while giving me 60% more money to throw around then I raised myself? (Proportionally they grow the most, 76%. But this only gives them a total of $1.76.)
Under these circumstances, to what extent will each of us find the fund raising effort worthwhile?
Without requiring any gov funds, I believe that implementing this proposal will quickly bring the process down to reasonable levels, since it encourages candidates not to put in the effort to out-raise their opponents while still giving them the incentive to raise the very minimum they need to run a reasonable campaign. In a variation of the proposal, perhaps that minimum could even be supplied by the government so the candidates will be beholden to no big donors while still having the freedom but not the incentive to raise much more.