Comments on: Campaign Finance Reform In Less Than 140 Characters

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:46:53 +0000

The Corporate masters won't like this

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 05:46:53 +0000

The Corporate masters won't like this

By: jwrennie

jwrennie — Thu, 06 May 2010 04:22:28 +0000

I understand the idea. Maybe it could work. There is a problem I think you are over looking though. Why do special interest groups contribute such large sums of money to politicians in the first place? The reason they do is simple, it makes sense. Politicians have access to the public purse strings and they have discovered that people will happily pay them for access to special favors that they can hand out. The problem isn't that special interests are giving money to politicians, that is just an inevitable symptom of the deeper problem.

The deeper problem is to much power in the hands of politicians. Want to make the corruption and the money in politics go away? It is simple, take the power away from the politicians to give out the favors to their donors and the money and all the rest will evaporate.

I like your idea, but I think it is a case of trying to apply a band aid to a sucking chest wound.

Jason

By: Emperor_Bob

Emperor_Bob — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:34:23 +0000

Enforcement and regulation would be much easier, because all we would have to do is audit the candidate's financial statements. Every donation would have a name, voter registration number and address. Right now there is no auditing of donations to special interest groups, political action groups or political parties. That's where the real problem lies, and my solution would eliminate them from directly contributing to candidates.

Too many ways to move money around through these groups to trace where it originally comes from. Much more difficult when it has to go through an eligible registered voter, particularly in large amounts.

The law would be regulating the candidates, not the donors. Candidates would be held accountable for verifying the source of funds. That's also why I think it would pass Constitutional challenges.

By: jwrennie

jwrennie — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:52:48 +0000

I agree that it would be good to do something. The problem is one of enforcement and regulation. I think letting it be open season would be simpler, and just require full disclosure of funds and sources. Your idea is nice, but I don't think it would have the desired effect in practice.

By: Emperor_Bob

Emperor_Bob — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:38:46 +0000

We have to do something to curtail the power and influence of the political parties and special interest groups. Of course there will be those that will try to cheat or get around the system. But it would be much more difficult if candidates could only accept money from people that could vote for them.

By: jwrennie

jwrennie — Tue, 04 May 2010 10:56:06 +0000

It is a nice idea but I suspect it would have unanticipated side effects and people would seek to cheat anyway.

Better to allow anybody who wants to spend money, provided what they say is true and there is full disclosure about who is paying for an ad, I think it will shake out ok in the end.

Jason

By: Betty

Betty — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:20:01 +0000

Wow – what a great and reasoned blog. I am a 75 year old Canadian woman and while I love Americans I have seldom found I could have a deep conversation with them. We always hit a wall of “exceptionalism”, “socialism” or “god”. Happy to know you and I will be reading and thinking as I read.
Betty in Toronto. BettyPaints in Twitter.

By: Betty

Betty — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:20:01 +0000