This is a great idea. I particularly like the second part of this. It respects the principle behind campaign finance reform while opening political donations - one meaningful form of civic engagement - to everyone. Got my vote!

This is a creative solution that seems as though it might work well.

A fantastic idea that offers a realistic solution to a big problem.

Great work here-  Let's combine it with open source / paper ballot election systems and clean up the whole enchilada !!

    I'm for all reforms that will stop corporate involvement in our law making . As in the constitution there shall be separation of state and religion same here separation of state and corporations . Corporations donated millions to the Democratic party which than passed that on to the Obama campaign as well as other candidates . How doe's your reform stop this ?

Might I add that they should open up the election system to viable third parties candidates? Perhaps open up the debates?

I for one do not like the idea of democracy based on only 2 choices. Actually it's more like the corporations choose their 2 candidates and offer them to the public to decide which one is better (remember the mainstream media's lovefest for Hillary/Guiliani/Obama/McCain during the primaries?). You heard nothing about poor ol' Ralph Nader, Chuck Baldwin, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, etc.

Might I also add that McCain-Feingold was a terrible mistake? It's original goals were to reduce the role of money and corruption. But it had another effect, it reduced competition by limiting free speech and being to complicated and bureaucratic. These excessive regulations prevents ordinary citizens like me and you to participate in election and limits it to only the wealthy who can afford to hire lawyers that can work the rigged system.

Does this mean my tax dollars would go to fund a candidate I didn't support?  NEXT!

Actually Martin, There are public financing systems like patriot dollars that allow you a 50$ tax credit to give to any candidate of your choosing! Don't be so quick to condemn.  This is a great idea.Check out my idea about citizens assembly for political reform please.

This seems altogether too simple. Not simple as in elegant. Simple as in not entirely commensurate with the problem in terms of scope and complexity. 
Corruption seems to come from four primary sources. The first is the politicians themselves, who, via the redistricting process known as gerrymandering have engineered some 94% of seats into 'safe' districts for whichever party 'owns' them. It's hard to maintain accountability when the politicians pick the voters. The variety of ways in which this corrupts are myriad, and many are obscure, but they're all bad. This has nothing to do with money (not directly, anyway) but still produces insanely corrupt effects.
Another source of corruption comes from voters themselves. Some places (e.g. Alaska) are far more dependent on the Federal government than others, and are, consequently, far more reliant on earmarks. The politicians who can deliver them are effectively buying votes. The longer they do this, the more seniority they gain, the greater their powers of appropriation become, and the more entrenched they get. It's not a coincidence that the longest serving Senator (Stevens) came from the most dependent state. Ultimately, the system rewards the people who simply buy votes, and corruption flourishes. Professor Lessig's proposal does nothing to address this aspect of the problem, since here, the money is actually flowing in the opposite direction, and is not subject to the rule he proposes. 
A third source of corruption comes from within the party. Professor Lessig's proposal certainly addresses things at one level, but does nothing to respond to the 'displaced' corruption that will now move further up the chain, and attempt the equivalent of regulatory capture, only with an entire political party as the target, instead of a single government agency. This has already happened to an extent on both the left and right, and a reform that attacks the corruption problem at the bottom, but leaves the top un-secured is likely to produce a very short-lived victory. 
A final source of corruption, which may actually be included in Professor Lessig's recommendation, is other politicians. Many legislators who run unopposed still raise re-election funds. Not for their own elections, but for those of others in their party. If you think this 'support' comes without strings attached, you don't know Washington. And don't underestimate the ability of senior members (who are most likely to have these war chests) to intimidate more junior or more independent members of their own party by threatening to channel resources into opposing nominations. In districts where the seat in question is already safely in the hands of one party or another, there's no loss to the Senior leadership if one truly representative legislator gets pushed out and replaced with a more partisan individual who can be counted on to toe the party line. 
In short, there are no silver bullet solutions. The larger point is that corruption is like water. It seeks the lowest level, and settles there. Displace it in one area, and it pools somewhere else. Single spot solutions like this don't solve the problem - they just encourage it to move elsewhere. 
This is not to be interpreted as self-defeating or hopeless. Rather, it is a suggestion that being effective starts with correctly sizing up the problem (i.e. not bringing a knife to a gunfight). The upside of Professor Lessig's suggestion is that, at any given point, simple rules like the one he proposes can be very effective. 
The challenge is identifying <i>all</i> the crucial points in advance, and making sure each of these bases gets suitably covered as part of a unified reform. Assuming you can pull off this kind of broad, comprehensive reform, you have a chance of winning. 
Winning, by the way, means successfully helping legislators recover their independence from everyone but their direct constituents, while strengthening the accountability of those legislators to those citizens.  
That's a far more objective measure for evaluating any congressional reform effort than something vague like "getting the money out of politics". 
Remember, too, if we simply "got the money out of Politics" we probably wouldn't have seen Obama win quite the victory he did. A victory, which, by the way, was assisted by a conspicious <i>avoidance</i> of public funding (to the extreme chagrin of his opponent).

   

This is the single biggest agenda item we can do to restore basic fairness back to our government.  This is the shock to the system that will make elected officials once more accountable only to the people who put them in office.  All others reforms will follow once this takes place.

I disagree entirely with you, Alex.
While I will admit that Obama's campaign flourished through personal donations, many of his donations were from people who contributed 250 dollars or less throughout the campaign, and while he would have had less money to spend, he would have still had a lot more than McCain.
Where I disagree is in your analysis of corruption. I think the main source of corruption is the money of private citizens and corporations which are able to donate such vast sums of money to politicians that without the backing of some rich supporters, politicians don't stand a chance of winning elections. Sure there are exceptions like Paul Wellstone, but they are exceptions, not the rule. The result of this corruption is that those politicians who have an alternative view of government that would not benefit corporations or rich businessmen will rarely get elected and are almost never re-elected.
This influence would be severely limited with a clean money election system, which would allow someone who is only supported by the citizens and by no big business to actually have the money to run a successful campaign. This opens the door to candidates who disagree with the party, disagree with the establishment or the status quo to communicate directly with voters and give them what they want.

Larry is, alas, naive.  There are many ways to corrupt a politician short of funding their campaign.  As long as politicians have something to sell -- control over businesses -- businesses will find a way to buy it.  The only way to have clean government is for government to have clean hands -- a complete separation of business and state.

We need a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the federal government from interfering with trade.  The Feds will still need money, of course.  It should come from a tax on consumption -- and all consumption should be taxed.  If poor people need to have their consumption tax refunded, so be it.

Alex Bowles provides a wonderful analysis of the broader problem, but is more pessimistic than necessary. Even though water “seeks the lowest level”, building dikes can raise the level a bit at a time. So let’s get started on raising the level of accountability to voters.  Gerrymandering is particularly pernicious, as it populates the House of Representatives with extremists, who are reluctant to compromise. The system would be improved if house district boundaries were required to be “optimal” according to some standard such as minimum boundary length. Let anyone compete for finding the optimal boundaries, with the courts judging the alternatives, according to the formula.  In the Senate, the problem is that the senators represent different numbers of people. If we stick to two senators per state, the votes in the senate should be weighted appropriately, perhaps by the number of votes the member received in the previous election. (Note that the states with the most earmarks and long-tenured representatives, Alaska and West Virginia, have small populations, and their people get more say in the Senate’s business.)  For money, things might be improved if candidates could only take donations from voters eligible to vote for them. That would help tie politicians to their constituents.  Absent a sympathetic Supreme Court, these changes would probably require a constitutional amendment, and would be difficult to pass. Can we come up with helpful changes that would be easier to accomplish?

I have a question about the national funding...by what parameters is it deemed that a candidate meets a "threshold of support?" What is that? Who determines it?

The only politician not for sale is the one who has nothing to sell.

Radically reducing the power and scope of the Federal government is the only way to get special interest money out of DC. Period. Anything else is band-aids.

Can anyone seriously believe that corruption and unethical morals in government should not be a top priority for drastic change?  Think about all the scandals we've heard about the last few months?  Senator Ted Stevens, Governors Elliot Spitzer and Ron Blogojevich, the entire Financial and Banking system, and the $50 billion ponzi-man, Bernard Madoff.  

If you then ponder all the businesses and industries that have been able to basically write their own laws for the last few years, it becomes even more mind boggling.

I like the notion of campaign finance reform, but think the system is so corrupt with backroom, good ol' boy networks ... we need to overhaul the system more drastically. 

What do people think about using the FCC to force the networks to give equal time to candidates?  We do own the airwaves, don't we?  Couldn't we allow 30 minutes to each candidate on a weekly basis for a month or so before the election?  Why do candidates need commercials to be elected?  Why can't ideas elect presidents?

I think that if corporations (who think they are corporate persons under the law) want to contribute, they should be treated fairly under the 14th amendment - limited to $250 like all other natural persons.

A question:   Why do we have to go through the process of campaign fundraising at all? We own the networks and the FCC has the power to give free, quality time to address the nation's concerns. The bulk of our donations go either to other candidates in the same party or to TV executives.  Why?

The last time I looked, PBS was fundraising--but war corporations such as Boeing and NMA still gave lavishly to support KQED's news hour.  I just wrote a comprehensive letter, based on Ann's last paragraph above.   The system rejected it saying that it was too long, then never gave it back to me to edit. Help from Mr. Rattray would be appreciated.  = )

I am suggesting a campaign period of, say, six months.   The first three months would be filled with diversity.   The last three months would be filled with candidates from the top three parties.  The trick is that no money would be solicited, except maybe for fliers...we own the networks.   Why do we need to fund TV executives or their golden parachutes? 

During the campaign, It would be the politican's job to explain to us what they have been doing, what they plan to do, and to have open discussions with citizens.  That would be plan for the top three candidates.

We need to hear the truth on many topics.   Here's one:  that by cutting the military/pentagon budgets back by 15 percent that a quality healthcare system would be established for the citizens....everyone must pay SOMETHING but on a sliding scale. 
Returning soldiers from Iraq are being ignored...politicans need to explain what is being done to help them.  PTSD is a common problem for which soldiers deserve more than passing assistance or inappropriate drugs which the pharmaceuticals are either phasing out or "experimenting" with.   They deserve a healthcare system, outside of the military,  that supports their mental health needs and invites their families to be part of the solution.  Today's politicans won't even admit there are vets who need help.  In fact a group of them were attacked by law enforcement at a major political rally this summer.

We need to hear about the resolution of these issues and more, directly from politicans as they are campaigning on TV, because we know that in the park, talking to thousands of people that obfuscation and jokes will be the main soup d jour.  The purpose of these huge gatherings is to pipe it into the station feed and across the nation.   

End the money train to the media.  

 

 

@ Mark,

I don't think we disagree on campaign finance as a source of corruption. Where we differ is the notion that it's the *root* of corruption.

Exclusive focus on campaign reform is like adding deadbolts to the front door while taking the back door off its hinges entirely. You don't solve anything. You simply redirect an existing problem into an new - and equally corrosive - channel.

And that's not the only example of fuzzy thinking that miring this debate. The entire premise is mush. Saying "we need to get the money out of politics" is a bit like saying "we need to get the ocean out of the sea".

In reality, money *is* politics, with corrupt politics leading to worthless money.

In places like Zimbabwe, inflation hits 11,200,000%. In places like America, money just vanishes altogether when hopelessly unsustainable systems finally collapse. Since politics both requires and defines money, the idea of seperating them is a non-starter, and doesn't begin to address the more fundemental question of accountability.

However, if you accept that money and politics are inseparable, and turn your focus to the larger good of widespread financial stability, you find yourself rediscovering the point the Founding Fathers made up front - the best form of government is by the people, for the people, and of the people.

That's the thing that's been turned on its head. What we have now is an arrangement where political parties 'own' their districts (94% of seats are considered 'safe'), continually adjusting the boundaries of those districts to protect their holds (essentially, picking the voters who can vote effectively).

Once in office, legislators are hopelessly vulnerable to special interests, as well as senior members of their own parties, who rarely consider the needs of particular constituents when forming party policy. In other words, we've strayed very far indeed from the 'of the people / by the people / for the people' ideal.

So I think the real goal of any corruption-related reforms should be measured in terms of the accountability it restores, and the resistance it provides against those who would threaten this essential relationship between legislators and voters.

If we can restore the supremacy of this relationship, our politics - and out money - will be stronger and more stable because of it.

Taxpayers already pay for U.S elections. The model Obama used is fine (excepting for going back on his word to use public financing), but let's not pretend that the money was "clean". Most of it can't even be traced.

The only public financing I would support is 100% taxpayer donations (not taxes) and divided equally to each nominee from every political party.

The amount of money raised and spent in this election is simply grotesque. Especially when we have a bunch of crybabies whining about the economy.

This proposal misses some of the main problems with campaign financing, but may be better than nothing.

There already is a limit of maximum donations, but there are companies that put together websites very cheaply to facilitate bundling of contributions.

10,000 $100 dollar donations given in bulk from walmart employees is going to appear to all parties, including the recipient, as a million dollar donation from the CEO of walmart.

One of the keys to making Campaign finance work in San Francisco is the rule that there is a spending cap for everyone that agrees to public financing of their campaign. However if someone who is not accepting public financing of there campaign outspends the spending cap, the spending cap is removed.

This proposal seems to ignore the lessons of campaign finance reform as it has actually been implemented.

Baloney.  There should NOT be any private money allowed for a clean candidate.  And the Obama model is NOT fine.  It was fine for Obama but he was an exceptional candidate.

@ Jeff,

Think about what you're saying here: "It's okay to make exceptions for the exceptional".

That is a perfect example of the rule of law being displaced by the rule of man. It's like saying "the cult of personality is okay, provided the guy is truly great".

And who are we to ask about this 'true greatness'? His supporters? More importantly, if this 'exceptional' exception becomes the law, doesn't that give supporters the right to bully, coerce, intimidate, and otherwise denigrate people who were - previously - equal under the law?

Clearly you've never read Orwell's 'Animal Farm'. It's very hard to see the path to the declaration that "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others", and take opinions like yours at all seriously.

Private money is fine from general constituents. Dilution caused by gerrymandering aside, peoples votes are theoretically equal in weight, and can be cast by anyone who is a citizen. In other words, you don't need to pay anyone to participate in a general election.

Contrast that with what happens between elections, in the offices of legislators from every state - you can't even get an appointment without paying a fee. Sure, everyone has the constitutional right to petition. But there's no corresponding obligation for legislators to actually listen. And if it's not an election year, good luck getting them to pay attention.

What the Obama election demonstrated was people buying back control of the election from the private interests that had co-opted the election process in prior years. Take this out of the mix, and you strip the people of a major check against corruption.

And don't kid yourself saying "well, if we made *all* contributions illegal, then we wouldn't have to worry about this in the first place."

This fails to account for the way that special interests could recover their influence by operating at the party level, and coercing legislators through that mechanism. The worst part is that, having sucessfully revived their attempts to pervert governance for their own, selfish ends, these groups would no longer have to worry about reform candidates raising money directly from the people their policies were victimizing.

So what you're suggesting isn't the simply solution you hope for. More importantly, whatever system is developed needs to encourage the entirely legal emergence of the exceptional. If you find that the only way the exceptional can rise is by making an exception to whatever rule you're proposing, then you;re looking at prima face evidence of a very bad rule.

Sure, the intention in good. If it were a brick, you'd find a good  home for it paving the road to hell.

For pete's sake, this is not a theoretical reform, it's a clean and fair election system that works like a charm in Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut!  Every elected official using public funding is FREE from the corrupting influence of large campaign contributions. What's that you say?  We've got the best politicians money can buy?  My point exactly!  In Arizona, most of the state's elected officials including Gov. Janet Napolitano have been elected with public funding, and NO large contributions from anybody!  In the last gubernatorial election, both Napolitano and her Republican opponent BOTH used public funding -- no money from lobbyists or their clients.

This would solve 90% of the problem of corruption.  Because the big political spenders who buy legislation would have nowhere else to go!  That's why they've been trying to repeal it constantly in Arizona -- because it works! 

Now let's get behind Larry Lessig and cut the umbilical cord between bog money contributors and politicians!  Vote YES!

"national funding to candidates who meet a threshold of support"

Does national funding mean our tax money will pay to fund candidates?  That is something a socialist country makes their people do.

I like the original idea.  2) could even be no more than $200.

I have my own limited & biased experience running for a local office in my hometown. I learned that a common first mistake a would-be politician usually makes is focusing too early on in their campaign, on the importance of fundraising/resource accumulation. The most important principle I realized was that a politician must strictly adhere to the laws, rules & regulations that mandate or govern how a campaign is to be ethically conducted, but that it is subject to wide interpretation by the authorities who are vested in this process. I never got to read up on "Campaign for Dummies" prior to running, but here & there, I sought (& found) reliable information from various organizations and/both previous candidates/elected officials who took the time to offer me their valuable advice. It's odd, that our public universities don't offer college resources for a would-be elected/appointed official. Also, the information I did manage to obtain, was mostly piecemeal and not really unified in any meaningful way. I would consider running again, in the future, if another opportunity came up. At this time, I'm pretty happy being able to do things as an activist, that an elected leader might not be able to. Peace.

I agree in general with money limitations, but I disagree with this statement: "Under such a system, no one could credibly say that it was special interest money that was driving the result."

Not everyone has $250 to contribute to the race of their choice.  What about students, or others in tight financial situations?  Wouldn't this system still make it possible for people in positions of financial power to give their 'underlings' incentives to donate?

I simply find it hard to accept a system which doesn't fund all serious candidates (including those from 3rd parties who have met some minimum threshhold of signatures) equally.  The actual level of funding should be quite small, only enough to pay for travel but not for adverts, so that politicans are forced to deliver their messages through serious debate rather than soundbite.  The current campaign system is broken, and money is just one aspect of it (albeit one of the largest).

``A final source of corruption ... is other politicians. Many legislators who run unopposed still raise re-election funds. Not for their own elections, but for those of others in their party.... [D]on't underestimate the ability of senior members ... to intimidate more junior or more independent members of their own party by threatening to channel resources into opposing nominations. ''
Posted by Alex Bowles on 12/14/2008 @ 12:03AM PST
I think this is a very interesting and important idea.  Certainly one aspect of party machinations that I don't understand is what the role of non-elected party workers is in establishing 'the party line'. 
The more I think about this, the less inclined I am to support term limits.  Yes, it would prevent 'senior members' from being created, but it would also push the power and influence those members currently have into the party structure, away from transparency requirements, and away from accountability.
The power is there; someone (or some-many) will wield it.  Let's be a little careful about the unintended consequences.

Personally, for me the simple solution is anonymity. The job of the FEC is to receive money on behalf of candidates, bundle it, and deliver the total weekly to the campaigns.  Define a bribe to be telling a candidate that you made a contribution.

The politicians are going to be owned by someone. I'd rather have them owned by the people they work for, instead of owned by the richest corporations.

I would also prefer distributing my tax dollars equally among the candidates, instead of my purchasing dollars going only to candidates that the corporations like.

 Why is it that no one Talks about puting limits, on how much a Candidate spends to get Elected? Then we need to think about a certain amount of Free Air time, divided up equally between all candidates runing for the same office. I beleive their was a time when Cadidates got free Air time. The problem with that is, A guy like Ralph Nader might get a Shot at being President. Competition is great for America. With so much Power in the hands of so few, it should be no surprize that our current President is George W Bush. Finally with so many of us headed for the Poor House, Who can afford to Contribute to Politicians

@ Cheryl,

I think you just encapsulated the overarching goal perfectly. In a government of the people, by the people, for the people, the construction you describe is really the only acceptable one.

What we've got now is an awfully large deviation from this norm. Apologies to all for pessimistic tone this has inspired. Must work on that. Hopefully, more sunlight (starting tomorrow) will help. That's real sunlight, by the way. But the metaphorical kind would be welcome too.

The larger point that this debate needs a positive anchor (restore accountability to voters) and not just a negative one (block special interests). There are three reasons. (1) The debate about money and elections can get very technical, very swiftly (i.e. pegging dispensations to 'prevailing rates' in various media markets - an idea that sounds great in theory, but is laughable to people who actually by and sell media for a living, and know exactly how opaque prices and the process really is.) Without a clear - and positive - benchmark, there's no way to effectively compare proposals and approaches, or evaluate their effectiveness if and when enacted. (2) Technical changes are notorious for producing unintended consequences. Without a clear (and, again, positive) benchmark, it becomes very difficult to see if and when the cure is neutralized (at best) or, at worst, becomes worse than the problem it's supposed to solve. (3) There is MASSIVE incentive to derail, hamper, frustrate, circumvent, and undermine these reforms, coming from all the special interests that this reform is supposed to derail, hamper, frustrate, circumvent and undermine. Consequently, there will be a fight, and the fight will see evolution on both sides. Knowing that flexibility is key, and that distraction is real, the need for a positive overarching goal is critical for folks who need to adjust course without loosing focus.

Finally, if this measure wins, it's important to frame the victory in a way that establishes a broader principle (supremacy of accountability to voters) that can be called on when the inevitable attack on another pillar is made, such as capturing an entire political party, or abusing earmarks to ward off challengers for a seat.

Oh, and congratulations to Larry + CC for getting this over the 500 mark. Bravo.

To hear a professor of law talk about "clean money" before or during an Obama administration is like hearing Exxon talk about clean energy... I don't buy it.  I think Obama will be more harmful to this country than Bush ever was- and I consider myself a Liberal.

There need to be limits to where the money comes from, first and foremost. I pay a third of my earnings to the District of Columbia - what for?  What could D.C. possibly do with all of that money from every U.S. taxpayer.

(2) inspired by the Obama campaign...? What now, that your saviour has been elected to the highest seat in the land, you want to allow an "unlimited amount" of funding? This is "selective corruption". What heresy! You are no different from the Joe Scarboroughs - and therefore I find fault with your "Obama-minded", it's our turn rhetoric.  No. It's not okay.

1. Reducing the scope of what polticians can do clearly reduces the potential for corruption We've got to aim for this goal. But it seems as if there's real merit in incremental changes designed to improve, even if only marginally, the independence of politicians from special-interest donors. Why not continue working on reducing the power of elected officials (executive as well as legislative)--but, at the same time, seek to change the financial incentives to which candidates are prompted by the campaign finance system to respond?

2. It seems clear that the problem of gerrymandering  and the absence of smaller parties from the political scene could both be addressed, at least in part, by the replacement of single-member with multi-member constituencies. It would likely be harder (not, to be sure, impossible) for politicians to gerrymander much larger districts. And, if five legislators, say, were chosen from a single district using, say, the single-transferrable vote, people would have much more substantial incentives to support smaller parties.

Alex Bowles's point about political parties seems very important to me.

If we add political funding the funding politicians already raise, won't that just inflate the market or increase the ambient noise level? Even if we provide funding equal to current spending, it might make politicans capable of running campaigns at today's prices, but then won't some of them still be willing to spend most of their time earning bribes to fund even more expensive campaigns in the future?

Would it be an improvement to double or quintuple the cost of national elections by adding public funds in order to drown out the improper influence of private contributions? That leads to the idea of limiting spending to just the public funds, but is that idea feasible?

If it's possible to outlaw use of private funds by candidates, surely it's not possible to outlaw use of private funds for political speech by political parties or proxy groups "Citizens for Joe Candidate" or "People Like You for the Election of Jill Candidate."

This is an important step forward. Let's do this.

A NEW APPROACH TO CAMPAIGN FINANCETO REFORM THE "REFORM"  Campaign finance reform has failed. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act [a.k.a. "BCRA" or "McCain-Feingold"] serves primarily to employ a larger staff at 99 E St., N.W. in Washington [the Federal Election Commission, or FEC]. The last election has served as a nail in the coffin of the Act -- the nation's first billion+ dollar election -- more confirmation of the old saying of an infamous Philadelphia Congressman: "money talks and bullshit walks." Obama's denial of public financing provided another nail, if one was needed. It is ironic that reformers call for public financing as the CFR flavor of the day, now featured, moreover, as the be-all and end-all of CFR efforts. This call provides an implicit recognition that their past efforts have indeed failed.  The major reason why a new approach is needed is that BCRA has failed to end the financial arms race that Congressional campaigns have become. It also failed to recognize the value of people's volunteer contributions of time. A book released four years ago anticipated CFR's failure and outlined an alternative. See WE THE PEOPLE: A Conservative Populism, p. 357. This approach, still new now, was ignored at the time even though it was presented to the Business Advisory Council of the Campaign Reform Project, Campaign for America by its author, this author, as then a member of the Council.   Any realistic CFR initiative starts with the simple recognition that there are only two factors that count in business and politics: time and money. Thus, time is the only real antidote to the dominance of money. If people don't commit time to help with campaigns, money necessarily dominates. Of course, time is not a perfect substitute for money. Time and money are complements insofar as money is needed to buy campaign materials [e.g., brochures and signs] that volunteers need to help them get candidates' messages out.  The key to real change in campaign finance is to find a way to limit money expenditures so that campaigns are impelled to spend more time dialing for people than dollars. Such a way would simultaneously honor the two goals implied earlier: (1) End the financial arms race; and (2) Build a people-based politics. A new approach to effect these would include the following features: ·                     Media expenditure limits for campaigns should be established based upon minimum requirements for candidates to get their message(s) out.  ·                     No expenditure limits should be in effect for additional expenditures arising from the utilization of political volunteers or paid personnel employed to "get the message out" via direct contacts with potential voters. In other words, expenditures tied to the time that people take reaching out to other people via direct, person-to-person encounters with them would enable unlimited amounts to be spent above expenditure limits for other forms of campaign outreach and message deliveries to potential voters. Amounts "unlimited" in principle, however, would be limited in practice by the number of volunteers that a campaign or political committee could attract and mobilize to utilize political materiel produced and paid for.    ·                     A rulemaking procedure through which the FEC would reformulate and strenghten pre-BRCA regulations to require "soft money" to be devoted to "party building" -- so that they serve to build up local party infrastructures and promote people's political participation through local party committees. The winning genius of the Obama campaign was his doing what political parties should have been doing for years other than serving as big money laundries -- rebuilding party organizational foundations, "local party infra-structures" at the levels of ward, precinct and neighborhood. The problem leftover from 2008 victories, however is that many of the local initiatives set up for the Obama campaign have no legal standing. What is being done to integrate Obama volunteers into local Democratic Committees, which do have legal standing? ·                     Public financing only for political party-building activities, on a shared public/party/ private matching funds' basis to and through parties that qualify (say, those that receive 5% of the vote in a relevant election. No public financing of individuals' campaigns should be allowed.  ·                     A tax credit of up to $200 per person for time contributed to political committees or campaigns. Time contributions of at least $200 divided by the minimum wage would have to be validated by two independent sources.  The key underlying assumption being made here is that such an approach would pass federal Constitutional muster even though the Supreme Court has already ruled against campaign expenditure limits for Congressional candidates. The fact that overall expenditures are not limited suggests that legal challenges based upon the First Amendment would not succeed. Unlimited expenditures to enable the real voices of real people to be heard via person-to-person encounters rather than electronic media would move a people-based politics to center stage and "money as speech" via the media backstage. We would turn parties back to competing for people rather than money.  Unfortunately, there is no room here for a detailed critique of the public financing approach -- as an answer to the replacement of money for people in politics, the antidote to political corruption or other claims made for it. Suffice to say that:  1. It's ironic that reformers who advocate public financing "to get money out of politics" talk only of money while discounting the role of people. So, public financing would not end the financial arms race; it would only substitute public for private money in the race.  2. The key critique is that public financing does little or nothing to bring people back into the process as volunteers to take back what should be their politics from the political pro's, media mavens and other politically self-interested actors.   Reformers have repeatedly ignored warnings that "money will find its way." Thus, CFR initiatives focused only on money will continue to fail. Money devoted to media rather than people serve to diminish people's role, de-skill them as citizen producers of politics, and reinforce their role as consumers of media advertising.  The "new approach" set forth here has not been fleshed out in all essential details. Yet, "the devil is in the details" of any approach. There may also be objections to be addressed. Thus, let's get a discussion going to flesh out additional details and ensure that we have a complete model that truly works to fulfill the goals set forth earlier.        PETER BEARSE, Ph.D., '08 Independent Candidate for Congress in NH CD 1 [www.peterbearseforcongress.com] and member of Change Congress [http://change-congress.org], 12/21/08

It's well past time, make it possible for more people to run for office, not just the rich and well connected,

It may be argued that public funding will not fix every corruption problem of government, but what a great step forward!

No, it won't get the money out of campaigning, but it will make it much harder for special interests to invest in their own politicians.  Politicians will have to try to please the majority of us, instead of just looking after the big donnors.

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public funding would be a way to keep the hands of big donators, whose personal agenda, may not be the agenda that is the intent of the people, or the correct intent for the good of the many not just the ONE. Boyer c. August

I am concerned about the amount of money spent on elections.  I gave but they are still hounding for money and I think the election process is to long.  We need to shorten it and use so much money for elections.  We can put that money to much better use. I am in the middle class and I don't have that much, so it seems wasteful, not corrupt but wasteful.

Election campaign reform! 
What a noble, clever directive.
Then let's figure out how to create a new category for corporations so they aren't accorded the status of individuals. 

The exciting thing about this is that it strengthens our democracy in that it leaves the political process dependent on the involvement of the people, not special interests. I have no problem with a candidate raising all the cash they can, when it is in the form of a limited amount of cash donations from one person at a time. Barak surely showed us the way to do it. Take aggregate sums from special interests of any kind out of the picture. 
I also think that providing airspace on C-Span, or another specially created public interest channel, on the basis of the numbers (not amount) of grassroots donations an individual receives, would be away of ensuring that the American public is given access to those candidates who are capturing the support of the grassroots and vice versa. 
A certain amount of airspace should also be set aside for leading contenders, on more conventional news and entertainment channels. This time should be considered paid for by these stations, in return for the virtually free airspace the FCC has given them all. 

Capaign financing most definitely needs to be changed drastically so no candidate knows who is sending him contributions and how much.  This will then candidates subservient to but one group of people; those who elected them.

It would be nice to see federally funded campaign with a ban from private- in particular, corporate sources. But this "threshhold of support" strikes me as weaselspeak for just another way of barring third parties, ergo blocking the REAL source of reforms in this country. It's always been the third party, the outsider party that brought lasting change to the United States, and they were at odds with both dominant parties each time. Also, this small donation limit would be subject to the same abuse we're seeing with the $2300 limit, and that's in the form of "bundling" where one person submits the amount per name they've supposedly acquired the donation from. In effect, yuo'd see lobbyists and corporations giving in the names of those working for them, even though the money comes from only one person or business.

We need funds for our own social needs. I propose we withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible, and use the billions of dollars for better ends. 
We should not have any kind of military operation in either country. Anyone with any historical knowledge or rational thinking knows that escalating the war on Afghanistan makes NO sense. Read what has happened there in history. AND imagine how you would react if a foreign power dropped bombs on your house, killed your children and relatives, destroyed your property, crops, and culture, and humiliated you -- with no end in sight.

Placing a time limit on campaigning for any Federal office along with a monetary limit of contributions would impose two restrictions, time and money, on office seekers.  A 90 day limit on primary campaigning and a 90 day limit on the general election campaign would do most to eliminate the total amounts needed for anyone seeking office for Congress on the presidency.  It would also relieve us, the voters, of the endless time and nonsense spent on useless campaigning.

Clean election financing is only a part of decreasing the corruption in our political system.  We need to drastically decrease the cost of running for office. Require TV and radio stations and newspapers to provide free time and space to all candidates, especially TV. The public owns the airwaves but we all seem to have forgotten this.  
Campaign finance reform is also about  lobbying reform. End the revolving door, ban government work by lobbyists and vice versa for ten years after they leave their government or lobbying job. Limit access of corporate lobbyists. Do not permit industry to write its own regulatory legislation.    I'm envisioning a country in which money doesnt control the government.  I'm talking about a separation of corporatists and state.  If candidates dont need industry money to run for office, that's a great start. But limits on the concentration of wealth must be imposed if we are to save our democracy. Increase the estate tax, increase top bracket income taxes, limit executive compensation for example by tieing the top pay of any company to the bottom pay by a specific percentage across industry, make investment income tax rates the same as employment income tax rates, prohibit mergers that create companies "too big to fail" and requiring complete transparency of business records of all kinds.  Employee free choice act and other support for working people.  Limits on profit margins, particularly for products people must have such as medical insurance, medical care. 
I saw a NYT editorial that reprinted arab world blogs on their reactions to Obama's election, and this one resonates with my theme: 
"But the question that really interests me is about the relationship between Obama and the true center of world power, Capital. There was an awful lot of money in Obama’s campaign ... A great chunk must have come from carefully planned investments by C.E.O.’s and multinationals. Will Obama be able to confront the mega-corporations? Does he want to? The poor and the colored population of the world, including that of the U.S., is the one that suffers most from malnutrition and hunger and food insecurity. We know now that mega-corporations, pushing for more profit at any cost, are responsible for most of the damage. Will Obama do something about that? Does he want to? Can he?