Campaign Finance Reform

15 January 2003

I've been thinking about campaign finance reform a lot lately.  Ever since our Congress-critters passed a bill that they knew wouldn't stand up in court.  In this way, they really did nothing except appear to do something and later on they'll be able to say, "Gee, we tried, but the court struck it down."  Benjamin Franklin once said, "Never confuse motion for action."  I don't.

My plan for campaign finance reform is simple.  A couple of bullet points.

Candidates can only accept campaign contributions from individuals in their district.

Think about it. There's no good reason for a candidate from, for example, California to be taking money from a company in Michigan.  Unless, of course, that company (that might make cars) in Michigan is trying to get favorable treatment in some appropriations committee.  Even so, tough shit.  The representative should be representing the people from his state.

Individuals can only contribute $100 to any candidate.

If you want, you can contribute $100 to every candidate in a race.  But $100 shouldn't be completely out of the realm of possibility of any voter.  (Note: I say voter.  If a person isn't a registered voter, they can't contribute.  This should cut down on fraud, a 5 year old contributing, etc.)

Personal Finances

My wife would like me to put something in here about not being able to use your own funds to run a race as she fears the government will all be rich people.  However, if someone is so stupid as to spend $1,000,000 of their own money to get a job that pays just over $100,000/year, then they're an idiot and people shouldn't vote for them for that reason alone.  Or they're a crook who plans on lining their pockets some other way, and we shouldn't vote for them for that reason.

No candidate can accept campaign contributions from any corporations, unions, or PACs; they can only accept money from individuals.

Companies can't vote.  Screw 'em.  They can contribute to parties or PACs or whatever else they'd like to.  They just can't give money to the politician directly.  Same with unions.  Politicians are supposed to represent the people or their district.  Now, if every employee of a corporation supports one candidate (which I find very unlikely), that's their individual choices.  More on this later.

Every candidate gets 10 minutes/week of airtime on every major television station in the market they're running in for two months prior to the election.

The people own the airwaves.  So, the people should be able to give time on those to the politicians.  This also eliminates the need for so much money by the politicians since they won't have to buy airtime.  They'll still have to pay someone to make the commercial, but they should be able to do themselves that with a video camera, which will open democracy up to more people.  Which is a good thing.  If a candidate wants more than 10 minutes, they have to pay fair-market-value for the airtime.  I may have to play with this number a bit and specify times because, I hope, this will open democracy up to more people meaning more candidates meaning more ads.

Every candidate gets 5 minutes/week of airtime on every radio station in the market they're running in for three months prior to the election.

Same as above.

Soft Money (aka "Issue" ads)

I have no problem with political parties, corporations, PACs, unions, or anyone else putting their own ads on television, in print, on the radio, etc.  But if they're truly issue ads, as they always claim, then they shouldn't be mentioning a candidate's name and should only be mentioning the issue.  It's the candidate's job to connect themselves to an issue and make sure that the public knows it.  This will also mean the voters have to pay attention.  Okay, that last point is probably more of a dream than ever a reality, but I can hope.

Other things to think about....

• Some may be worried about newspapers covering one (or more) candidate more than others.  The readers can vote with their quarters and not buy that paper if they so choose.  Additionally, most people already read a newspaper with their own political slant, so who cares what the paper covers!?!  Additionally, most people don't read and, instead, get their news from the TV, which will have free and equal ads for candidates (see above).
• Voter turnout in this country is horrible.  When I become President (or a politician of any ilk), I'm going to push for elections to be invalidated unless 50% + 1 of the registered voters cast ballots.

Wanna see what a scumbag your local politicians are and how much money they've taken from people outside of their district, how much they've taken from special interest groups, etc.?  Check out opensecrets.org for a complete report on your Congress-Critter.