Here is a Guest Commentary from Bob Haran, newly re-registered Republican Conservative on the bill passed yesterday by a 57 - 0 vote in the State Legislature on Clean Elections:
BOB HARAN
"I agree with the basic goals of Clean Elections, which is to take the power away from the lobbyist to control elected officials through their campaign contributions by leveling the playing field for candidates that don't want to feel obligated to lobbyist by accepting campaign contributions from them. However, if you're a candidate that doesn't want to be owned by the lobbyist and you also don't want to accept public funding of your campaign, you're in a no win situation.
Instead of giving candidates only a choice of accepting public funding or cash from lobbyist, a better system would be to give the candidates for office what they want and to give the voters what they also want. A candidate for office wants to get their message out to the voters, the voters want to known the background of the candidates and where the candidates stand on the issue's.
Unfortunately, the days of standing on a tree stump in the middle of the town square and telling the voters where you stand and why they should vote for you are over. It takes money for candidates to get their message out, to pay for the postage, which is the biggest expense in a local or legislative campaign, or pay for radio and TV airtime, which is the largest expense in a statewide campaign.
A better use of public money to level the political playing field and one that gives both the voters and the candidates what they want, would be to have the candidates pay the cost of printing their own literature and have Clean Elections pay for the postage to get the candidates message out to the voters.
A similar system could be used for statewide campaigns where the candidates are responsible for producing the radio and TV messages and the state pays for the airtime to get the candidate's message out. This system not only allows all candidates to get their message out but it also takes the public funds out of the hands of the candidates to use or misuse, which also eliminates the need for candidates to file burdensome reports to Clean Elections on almost a daily basis and relieves the state from adjudicating endless Clean Elections complaints from candidates."
Bob Haran,Phoenix, AZ
1 comment:
Bob I agree. Something has to be done with all this $$$ in political campaigns. My plea for years has been "take the money out of politics". I know this will NEVER happen, but somewhere down the line this issue must be addressed. Look at 2006? The two candidates for Senate in AZ had to raise over $ 14 Million to run against each other (granted 'Boss Pederson' tried to buy the election, Sen. Kyl raised his money). The founding fathers never thought in their wildest dreams that money would be such a part of the political atmosphere. I hope this can change someday!
Post a Comment