Emperor's Rants and Observations

Candidates may only accept donations, of any kind, from individual registered voters, eligible to vote for that candidate.

If you can’t vote, you can’t donate. It’s really that simple.

In political campaigns, money is more akin to a vote than it is to speech.

Corporations can’t vote. Unions can’t vote. Political Parties can’t vote. All the various groups, committees, foundations, think tanks, etc can’t vote. Foreigners can’t vote. Non-citizens can’t vote. Lobbyist can only vote where they are registered and eligible.

With that as a the standard, anything that promotes a candidate would be considered a contribution to the candidate and can only be done, paid for, provided by, a registered voter eligible to vote for the candidate. Individual rights to free speech are protected, playing field is level, and the rules are uniform across the board.

The result of this single one line change would be:

• Lower cost of campaigns
• Less TV, Radio and Print advertising
• Encourage more debates and town halls
• More use of the Internet
• Reduced lobbyist influence
• Improved quality of candidates
• More citizen involvement
• More accountability to voters
• Reduced interference from outsiders
• Increase voter registration and voting

Makes sense. Sounds good. But like a lot of sensible, good ideas, probably won’t happen. Because nobody wants to give up their exception to the rule. The power brokers would lose their power. Control would revert to the people and thats the last thing that anyone vested in the current system wants.

Want to test my theory that this idea will be attacked from all sides? Click the link below to post it to your Twitter status

Candidates may only accept donations, of any kind, from individual registered voters, eligible to vote for that candidate. http://bit.ly/cHOPYV

2. Campaign contributions restricted to individuals eligible to vote for the candidate. No cash or in kind contributions from ineligible to vote individuals or any entity including businesses, organizations, political action committees or political parties.

We live in a Constitutional republic.

A constitutional republic is a state where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government’s power over citizens. In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers are separated into distinct branches and the will of the majority of the population is tempered by protections for individual rights so that no individual or group has absolute power. The fact that a constitution exists that limits the government’s power makes the state constitutional. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican.

Nowhere in our Constitutions are there any mentions of political parties, special interest groups, political action committees or any other subset of individuals. It’s government and individuals. The rest is just BS that has evolved over time. Things like the two party system or primary elections, just happened in response to a vacuum left by the absence of enough individuals engaged in the system.

So it’s time for us to re-assert our proper place at the TOP of the organization chart, not the bottom. First thing first our representatives are, our individual representatives. My neighbors shouldn’t get to choose my dinner if they aren’t eating with me. My neighbors shouldn’t be able to influence the election of my representative if they can’t vote for my representative.

Anything that gets between the people and our government is an enemy of the people and our government. That includes, first and foremost, the Democratic and Republican parties. Simply because of their shear size and how intertwined they are throughout all levels of government. Oh, and no other party is any better or worse.

The cool thing, we don’t even need a law to make this happen. We just need enough of us to agree, and refuse to vote for anyone who is a member of any political party or has accepted/will accept donations of any kind from anyone/anything that can’t vote for them. Since independent voters outnumber both declared democrats or republicans this seems like a doable thing to me.

4. Make ballot access the same for every candidate for office. Nomination by petition with 1% of the registered voters in the election district the candidate is running for.

When a candidate files for office as a candidate representing a recognized political party, they just submit a form and financial disclosure and they are on the primary ballot. A recognized political party is based on the percentage of votes that they received in the previous election.

A candidate of a non-recognized party or NO PARTY affiliation must collect a number of signatures of registered voters in their election district. That will get them on the general election ballot but not the primary ballot

This gives candidates of recognized political parties a clear and unfair advantage over those candidates not allowed on the primary ballot. During the primary campaigns candidates are able to raise campaign contributions, gather supporters, appear in forums, participate in debates, and generally raise awareness of their candidacy.

Party affiliation should have no bearing on ballot access. Neither the US Constitution nor the Alaska Constitution (haven’t researched other states) mention political parties, or primary elections for that matter.

The “two party system” is only perpetuated by excluding others as much as possible from gaining equal access to ballot.

Resources:
Ballot Access News
Coalition For Free and Open Elections
Freedom Ballot Access