Wednesday, September 30, 2009

True campaign reform

1) No elected or appointed official who receives a pension for his/her government work can then go on to work with or for a lobbying group without forfeiting his/her pension.

Reason: It makes no sense to have an elected official use his/her job to further a career at voters' expense, and then work against the voters' interest.

2) All candidates shall have a cap put on the amount of money spent on their campaigns, beginning with the smallest political jurisdiction. The candidate running against an incumbent  shall be allowed to have an additional 50% to spend.

Reason: An incumbent has the advantage of name recognition and office and record. This levels the playing field a bit.

3) The campaign shall not be allowed to spend the money alloted to it until a specified date which should not be six months before the election.

Reason: This will help do away with the incumbents' needs to start fundraising while they are supposed to be working on legislation. This will also help because it eliminates the need for the outrageous sums of money spent on elections by parties and candidates.

Realistically I do not expect these points to be taken seriously by incumbents, political parties, TV networks, newspapers, radio stations or anyone else who makes money on elections.

But one can hope.

4 comments:

Charles Lenchner said...

I like this idea!

Michael said...

I would have all elections for federal positions publically funded to elimiaatne private money influence.

Michael said...

I would have all elections for federal positions publically funded to eliminate private money influence.

hariet said...

You have some great ideas. That will eliminate 96% of the candidates running for office. Only the rich will run. Is that good?
I think the problem is insoluble. Let's just give up and give the country to the banksters and the other crooks.