The hypothetical Clean Elections Act of 2007 can WORK for AMERICA!

[Selatius]

the Clean Elections Act of 2007 is a public financing mechanism for all federal elections in the House, the Senate, and the White House. All candidates who qualify for public financing gain the exclusive right to advertise their elections as "clean." We'll leave the legalese up to the lawyers, but here's what I want, at the very least:

All candidates have a choice to run with or without taxpayer funding. This is voluntary because if it is involuntary, the Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional on 1st Amendment grounds. If you choose to apply for taxpayer funding of your campaign, then to qualify for public financing of your campaign, you must meet these criteria:

1. In your district, you must collect a number of small donations ($5/individual, for instance or even lower if one wants) equal to at least 5% (or some other appropriate number) of the number of registered voters in your district.
   
2. You must agree to abide by prescribed spending guidelines.
   
3. You must agree to forego all contributions from individuals, non-government organizations, or government entities.
   
4. You must agree not to spend money out of your own pocket.
   

If you agree to all these criteria, then you will get

1. 100% public funding of your campaign (both primary and general election) including matching funds if outspent by your opponent.
   
2. The privilege to advertise your candidacy as "clean" on all of your political ads.
   

Now, the advantages of this law are:

1. It frees up candidates from focusing on glad-handling and wheeling-and-dealing for money in favor of simply talking to voters, spending more time with voters, and focusing on the message.
   
2. It helps send across the message that you're not owned by PACs or special interests.
   
3. It allows many poorer potential candidates to run who otherwise would not run because of monetary constraints, which means it leads to more people running for office including more women and minorities.
   
4. It reduces the impact of lobbyists.
   

In Maine, which instituted clean elections in 2000, today

1. 83% of the Maine state senators ran on clean elections in the last election cycle. (2004 stats)
   
2. 77% of the Maine state house representatives ran on clean elections in the last election cycle. (2004 stats)
   

In Arizona, which instituted theirs more recently (roughly 2002, I guess), today

1. 10 out of 11 statewide officeholders won under the Clean Elections System (2004 stats)
   
2. 48% of Arizona house representatives ran on clean elections. (2004 stats)
   
3. 23% of Arizona state senators ran on clean elections. (2004 stats)
   

In North Carolina, which passed their own clean elections laws in 2004

1. Both of their state Supreme Court races were won by clean elections candidates in that cycle.
   
2. 2 of 3 of the Courts of Appeals seats were won by clean elections candidates.
   

Is this not what America needs to "denazify" itself of corporate special influence in Congress? Is this not remarkable?

I draw my inspiration for this thread from this little video narrated by Bill Moyers.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejdNiG3lOAk
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m8DSiYWTUk

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Yes, but bear in mind that ehre in Maine it is not mandatory because of

the "Free Speech" issue. We would have to rework the ruling on money as free speech issue before this could be done across the board. AS it stands now neither our senators nor our governor ran clean election campaigns.

[Selatius]

2. I never said the thing is mandatory

I explicitly said it in the 2nd paragraph it should be voluntary because of 1st Amendment grounds.

You still have a right to donate money to a candidate, but the candidate also has a right to refuse it as well.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. I didn't mean that you said that it should be mandatory, just pointing out that

unfortunately most people running for the Hill will not go w/ public financing, meaning special interests will still hold sway in D.C. :^(

[The Count]

3. Financing's good - assured counting even better!