Groups launch effort to change campaign money law

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WASHINGTON – Two groups that have long advocated public financing of elections plan to spend at least $8 million this year to prod Congress to vote on proposed legislation aimed at reducing the influence of big donations in politics.

The joint effort by Common Cause and Public Campaign, called the Campaign for Fair Elections, will launch its first wave of advertising this week aimed primarily at Democrats who have yet to sign on in support of the bill.

The legislation would give candidates $4 of public financing for every $1 dollar raised through contributions of $100 or less. Participation would be voluntary, and candidates could opt out from the system.

Advocates hope the matching money would be so attractive that it would discourage politicians from having to chase big financial contributions from special interest donors.

In my opinion, I dont like how big buisnesses/special interest groups contribute astronomically large amounts of money to a certain canidate, and in return the contributers have more say in politics. Goverment being in bed with big buisness/special interest groups dont really fly well with me.

It seems sometimes that the candidates that raise the most amounts of money seem to be the most known people, atleast to the general public. What do yall think about this?

I think that election reform is an extremely important issue. I think primaries and elections should be tax-payer funded and political contributions and advertising should be banned. I think we'd be better off without political parties, as well, but that probably cannot be legislated.

I think the reason why we're in the horrible mess we're in now with corporations running the government instead of representatives of the people is - money in politics. We will not get the republic back, in my opinion, until we get the money out of politics.

Originally posted by buni11687
Article

I see by clicking on the link at the bottom of the article that the name of the legislation is the Fair Elections Now Act.

There is a website called GovTrack that tracks legislation. It says that this legislation was introduced March 31, 2009. It's H.R. 1826 in the House and S.752 in the Senate.

This statement from the article worries me:

"Democrats and Republicans who are strongest on reform will buffer themselves against anti-incumbent anger," Edgar said.

Is this all a show?

I wonder whether efforts at the Federal level are worth our time. It may be that campaign finance reform will have to happen at the city-county-state level in the 50 states.

Another thought that I have is that groups often get infiltrated, and some are front groups from the get-go.

I'm thinking that the best way to accomplish election reform is for people to join together with their friends and family to find out what they can do as individuals locally, and then share ideas with people all over the country through blogs, forums, YouTube, talk-show call-in, etc. Whatever works could then be copied by others.