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The idea with publicly funded “Clean Elections” is that politicians should spend their time listening to their constituents instead of selling tickets to $200/plate dinners to pay for their campaigns. The current system seems so obviously flawed that it’s a wonder that we have it at all.

Supporting democracy is our goverment’s main function. So personally, I can’t imagine a better place to spend public money than on elections and campaigns. Even if we finance a few boondoggles, the machinery of democracy is a better place than most to waste the government’s money.

So I was excited when I initially ran across similar ideas at sites like PublicCampaign.org but I wasn’t sure how far it would get. (Watch the video “The Road to Clean Elections” for a good overview.) But after poking around a bit more it turns out there’s both Federal and California legislation in the works now to offer publicly funded campaign alternatives.

CA AB 583, based on successful laws in Arizona and Maine, recently passed the state Assembly in a 47-31 vote and is now before the California Senate. Here’s basically how it would work.

• Candidates that agree to limit private or personal financing of their campaign and demonstrate their popular support by gaining a set number of $5 contributions would qualify for public financing of their campaign.
• Qualifying candidates get a debit card that they use to pay for all of their campaign costs.
• If a Clean Money candidate is outspent by a non-Clean Money candidate, they get extra funds to respond.
• If a Clean Money candidate is the target of attack ads by special interest groups, they get extra money to respond to those attacks.
• Since it’s voluntary, it avoids being struck down by the courts as a violation of free speech.

The Federal Clean Elections Bill: HR 3099 seems to be a similar law governing House election campaigns. The bill’s sponsor Congressman John F. Tierney was interviewed on an NPR spot a while ago. One quote I liked from Grover Norquist speaking on the need for an end to “ear-marking:”

“If you were trying to keep cockroaches from under your sink and someone put a large birthday cake under your sink and you said, ‘Ok, how are we going to keep the cockroaches out,’ and they respond, ‘Oh, let’s build a fence, let’s have walls,’ the answer is no, get rid of the cake.”

HR 3099 would also amend the Communications Act to provide free broadcast time for candidates which remedies something I never understood: why are our elected representative begging us for money to give to the TV studios so they can broadcast on public airwaves? Can’t we just take the airwaves back for a little bit? We need them to make our democracy work. Just deduct it from the fee we charge them for the broadcast license or something. Yea. Somebody else thinks the same thing. Both John McCain and Russ Feingold are supporting it.