Public Financing of Senate Campaigns
June 20th the “Fair Elections Now Act” will have its first hearing before the Senate Rules Committee. Lead sponsors Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) will testify in support of the bill. This hearing is an important step in advancing the Fair Elections Now Act in the Senate, and winning full public financing for all congressional races.
The four part approach in the “Fair Elections Now Act” would create a fair system of campaign financing to restore Americans’ confidence in our elections process and break the dependence on special interest lobbyists for campaign contributions. Specifically, it would:
* Allow candidates to raise a limited amount of seed money, capped at $100 per contributor, to get their campaigns up and running
* Require candidates to raise a specified number of $5 contributions (based on the size of their state) from residents of their state in order to demonstrate that they are serious, viable candidates deserving of public funding
* Once a candidate qualifies for public funding, he or she is eligible to receive a minimum of $750,000, plus an additional $150,000 for every congressional district in the state minus one
* If a candidate is being outspent by independent expenditures or an opponent who has opted-out of the Fair Elections system, the law would match that spending dollar-for-dollar up to 200 percent of the base allocation
An overhaul of our election system is long overdue. Past efforts to reform campaign finance like McCain-Feingold — however well intended — have just shifted the path of special interest money, not ended its corrosive effect. The only way to prevent another Jack Abramoff is to take the big money out of politics altogether by establishing a fair system of public funding.
Almost as important as how important legislative decisions are made is how important decision makers are elected.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
10 Responses to “Public Financing of Senate Campaigns”
What about 527 money? Sounds like close the window but leave the garage door open.
Exactly, casualobserver. Paul, what makes you think that this type of system would get rid of the Jack Abramoffs rather than driving them underground? People like that will still find ways for their money to buy them influence; in fact disallowing the private contributions that go directly to candidates (for which at least there is accountability) will mean that we will no longer be able to follow the money trail and the contributions will be hidden via 527 contributions. And, of course, the ads sponsored by 527′s give the candidates plausible deniability; they can actually have someone create an attack ad and then pretend they had nothing to do with it.
Public Campaign Finance gives candidates the choice to try and make their case to the public without having to pander to special interests. I would give such a candidate extra consideration.
My preference would be to also limit political contributions to a certain amount and only by individuals rather than business entities or Unions.
Special interests will always seek influence – meanwhile we should always try to minimize it.
Every proposal I have ever seen about public financing is speicifically designed to make unions and NGO’s much more powerful while trying to hammer business based contributions.
This proposal is no different.
To reduce the influence of big money donors would definitely be a boon. For one thing, Congress could spend more time doing its job instead of soliciting contributions. For another, it’s unhealthy for deep pocket interests to be able to buy more accesss, and thus more influence than the average person who is fated to live by the results of that influence.
I have no inclination to cry for business, labor or other interest groups who would lose the ability to buy favors with donations. The whole notion that having more money should provice more influence seems repugnant. Then, too, it’a not like these interests would be banned from Washingotn; they would just need to present their case on its merits, without bribes.
I’m sure there will always be tunnels dug to undermine principles. I don’t see why those can’t be addressed as well, as they crop up,
There will always be bankrobbers. That’s not a good reason to scuttle preventative anti-theft measures and settle for just the ansparancy of taking pictures of bankrobberies in progress.
Why should we pay for other people’s campaigns, and help institutionalize the two-party duopoly in the process? (We shouldn’t.)
Welcome back, Paul!
Well, my point is that regulating the money that influences politics is a lot like prohibition, or the War on Drugs, or prohibiting prostitution. The donations will still happen but if you make them illegal, then the public will have LESS knowledge about which candidates are ‘on the take’, not more. Instead of assuming that the people who support this really want to run ‘clean’ campaigns, I’m suspicious that some of them may be the worst offenders who want to be able to hide contributions rather than having them come directly to the campaign where they have to be disclosed.
There are, of course, speculations about what side effects would result.
That’s what they are -speculations.
To address them properly would require counter speculations about how to deal with them, should they actually occur.
I see no reason to assume, contrary to how problems and their evolution are customatily dealt with, that this case is different and possible side effects are the death knell of the search for separating politicians from corrupting money influences.
This is only step one.
We can deal with ensuing steps in due time, when we are speculating less and dealing with real problems more.
Forewarned if forearmed, however, and strategies for what may come should be on on the drawing board. Having read some good ideas, I am far from despair. I’m further still from giving up on a goal before the first step in achieving it is taken.
This is the perspective from whidh I see the issue.
Others will have their own and different perspectives,
To each his own.
I live in Arizona where we have had a similar program for a couple of election cycles now. There are some criticisms but overall it does create more opportunities for enthusiastic, idealistic types to have a shot at public office. Despite some of its shortcomings I support this effort, once it is enacted the flaws can be ironed out, much as we have had to do here in the desert. If a corporation wants to get its thousands of shareholders motivated to give an individual contribution, they can use their massive resources to encourage such an effort. Currently the large sums of money that are wielded by a small minority greatly unbalance and corrupt our system. Many corporations are owned by thousands of shareholders that buy in through mutual funds and other plans, they can trust their board to manage the money but I don’t think they also trust them to vote their collective conscience.