If you examine the current crop of United States Congresspersons you will find they all have something in common: they are all very good at raising money. It is shameful that our system has degenerated to the point that the best thing that can be said about many politicians is that they are good fundraisers. We currently have a system of government that forces candidates for federal office to raise millions of dollars to fund their campaigns. Incumbents spend more than half of their time in office focusing on gathering money for their next run. The pursuit of campaign cash forces politicians to pander to small groups of wealthy donors to stock their campaign war chest. The whole time they are accruing money, they are also accruing a large number of political favor IOUs. By the time they attain or retain office, they are so deeply indebted to special interest groups that constituents’ interests are often forgotten. The overall effect is a system that borders on legalized bribery. The cost to the American tax payer is enormous. There is a long list of scandals caused by Congresspersons accepting large donations in exchange for ignoring the best interests of their constituents. This list includes the Savings and Loan scandal (including the Keating Five,) the fiasco at Enron, fundraisers appointed to high public office, and now the financial industry melt-down that is wreaking havoc on our economy. The list is long and the cost comes right out of the taxpayer’s pocket. I believe the unique circumstance of lobbyist Jack Abramoff is not that he performed an illegal act, but that he was caught and prosecuted. Since the line separating bribery from large campaign contributions is so gray, in many cases it is almost impossible to prove the law has been broken. I believe that the majority of United States congressmen and senators do not originally run for office hoping that they will be able to pander to special-interests. I believe the majority of candidates for public office are at first motivated by a desire to serve their constituents and the country they love. But even the most ethical among them can be weighted down by the need to trade access and favors for money to run their campaigns. I believe we need a system that allows our public officials to focus on doing the people's business. A system that allows them to spend their time legislating rather than fund-raising. A system that allows for Congress to be made up of individuals who have major attributes other than being outstanding fundraisers. We need to get special interests out of our legislative branch. Ours could once again be a government by the people for the people. We could get candidates who were unwilling to sell themselves to the big money donor. Candidates who were able to make a fixed amount of money go farther. Imagine it - a Congressperson with no special interest IOUs who could also operate on a budget! It shouldn’t be too good to be true. The way to get special-interests out of politics is to get big money out of politics. Although public funding of campaigns would cost many millions of dollars, it would likely save many billions of dollars of taxpayer money being subverted by small groups of wealthy donors. Just the cost of the Enron debacle alone would have funded publicly financed Federal campaigns for the next several years. Publicly financed campaigns have already been tried on a state level in Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, New Jersey, Vermont, and Connecticut. The overall results of these experiments have been positive. A more diverse group of candidates have been attracted to the political process and incumbents are less entrenched. A basic example of a publicly-financed campaign system is that a US House candidate would need to raise 1500 small contributions (of 5 to 100 dollars each) while spending no more than $75,000 in seed money. They would then become eligible for federal financing and could not accept further private donations. If their opponent opted out of public funding and proceeded to raise big private dollars, the publicly-financed candidate would have some matching funds made available to keep them competitive. The idea of spending millions in tax dollars paying for campaigns sat uneasily with me at first, but the alternative is a system that has legal bribery and corruption at its very core. Investing in a public system to help prevent billions in pork barrel spending each year just makes common sense. The billions wasted in Iraq by Halliburton alone could have paid for a decade or more of clean elections! Senators Richard Durbin and Arlen Specter have co-sponsored the Fair Elections Now Act, which I believe is a step in the right direction. I hope you will visit the websites below and join me in supporting this legislation. I strongly believe that we can take our nation back from the special interests if we join together! http://www.campaignmoney.org/campaigns/main/fair-elections http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4104607 |
