McConnell's name was drilled into my head by several political science classes because of his suit against the FEC Re: McCain/Feingold. It's a great thing that Durbin's pushing it, because it lends credibility to the idea, but - like most of our far-reaching agenda - it will take a Democratic President and a significant Senate majority.

Yup McConnell was the main opponent to BCRA.  He will fight this one with everything he has got.  It took a decade to get BCRA passed and this one is going to be damn tough.

Most CFR types assume that people will have to get used to having it in the states before it makes it way through Congress.  We will need to continue to organize around this for a while.  Even here in CA there just is not a huge groundswell for public financing.  I have to assume that someone soon will spend $1 million to collect the sigs to get an initiative on the ballot and then we will see.

Will never happen as long as we have a 1 seat majority in the Senate--and also you cannot overlook the DLC Democrats who are also beholden to corporate influence and money. People like Mark Pryor, Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Tom Carper...etc etc etc...

It's never gonna happen unless they feel pressure to do it and there is a huge groundswell of support for it in the population, which is not there right now.

I have thought about public financing of campaigns quite a bit and talked about it with a lot of intelligent people and it seems to me that while it would be a very good idea in theory it would be difficult to impliment in practice.

I don't mean to sound snotty or rude, I just feel that there are many many obstacles to publicly funded races. I could be wrong about some of them but to me they seem to be there. I have worked, in the past, for very poorly funded candidates, (I guess "work" would be a poor choice of words as despite the fact that I was near the top of both campaigns that come to mind I was paid poorly/not at all. While I was on those campaigns I would have loved it if they were publicly funded; that being said it seems like a pretty difficult mountain to climb and I am not even sure it is such a good idea if it were feasible. Here are just a few of the problems I see with public financing:

1.) How is it given out?
Does everyone get an equal share? Some districts are more expensive than others as are some states.
Will incumbents try to work in some sort of advantage for themselves? Probably.
What happens when 50 people declare for a primary and somehow get on the ballot? What about 100 people?

2.) How much would it cost?
Lets just say there are only two people in each race? Lets go with the number you put out of $1,000,000. Thats $870,000,000.00 just for Congressional races. How much do Senate races cost? Bids to be elected governor? What if someone wants to run for President?

3.) Will they somehow lock third party candidates out of the races?
Both major parties seem to love this idea, would they find a way to lock it into publicly funded races?

I have some issues with it as well... mainly that it would give even greater power to incumbents.  A challenger that gets the same amount of cash as an incumbent is sure to fail.  Part of our success in 2006 was the ability to raise money in greater amounts than the incumbents we defeated.

Thanks,

Mike

This is going to be the only way to get big money out of politics and although it will not pass because of the President and a slim Senate majority, it is still important to get this issue out in public for the future Democratic President.

As for the potential cost of a billion dollars on congressional races, in 2004 a half a billion was spent on the presidential campaign alone. This would make a more level playing field for all candidates plus it would reduce the 1 year of campaigning for office. The public is sick and tired of the perpetual campaign and would support this legislation with enough facts.

I believe the key will be for more states to pass this type of legislation (looks like NY will be next) which would be similar to how support grew for the minimum wage increase.

Instead of giving candidates fixed dollar amounts, I'd like to see a public campaign finance system that allows individual citizens to direct a small amount of money among candidates that they like.  Even if it's only $25 or $50, this could easily outweigh campaign money from all other sources.  The cost for such a system wouldn't be more than about $5 billion a year, an investment well worth it IMO if it results in cleaner government.

There needn't be any hurdles for eligibility- as long as a candidate is registered and follows FEC rules they can receive funds that people choose to direct to them.  And politicians' success would become much more reflective of public support rather than how much they suck up to monied interests.

Personally, I lean toward fixed amounts because if individual citizens gave their time rather than their money it would force a more people powered movement than a money driven system.

My worry with individual contributions for example a $100 limit; a wealthy business owner convinced his employess to all give a $100 to a sympathetic candidate, I think thousands of dollars would start to roll in. Of course if the amount was $25 that does not seem like much but I could just imagine a push to raise that amount within a few years because of inflation. I would like to see outside contributions just taken off the table.

is a good example of someone who has a big campaign debt, but is trying to rid himself of it the responsible way - through our donations - before the next election.

Congressmen do NOT want publicly funded elections.  It would erase a huge advantage that incumbents have against challengers.

Congressmen think fund-raising is a pain.  But worth it to assure a safe seat.

If Congress wanted publicly funded elections, we would have them by now.

Adjust your paradigm.

Only if the public demands it, will we get it.

Years ago, residents in Maine demanded public financed elections.  We got them.   And they work.  The 06 election points to the success of the system.

Even Repubs and conservatives run as "clean election" candidates.  Our '06 gubernatorial race saw only the incumbent DEM (!?) reject funds, which limited the candidate to $1Million.    So, the Green Independent, Republican and two other Indies received financing.  The Dem won, and our election featured a great debate with four legitimate contenders with varying perspectives.

Consequently, we have a very vocal Green and conservative presence in the state, though only moderate to liberals Dems and Repubs will win state and fed races.

To fund this system, residents can select a $3 contribution box on the yearly tax filing.  I also belive the state provides other funds.

A successful clean elections approach such as Maine's provides a shining example of how to repair our extremely tarnished election system.

As has been said, it is up to our progressive community to organize the effort.

How do we do this?  One approach would be an inside-outside strategy, within selected states via refendums and a correlative effort inside Congress.  I believe we have the "mo", and the public is certainly behind our efforts to clean house.

The Zogby poll we commissioned, over at OpEdNEws.com, found that a majority of voters support requiring mainstream media to GIVE free ad time to qualified candidates. The biggest cost of campaigning is the cost of buying ad time. Take it out and I bet that million bucks drops precipitously. Why shouldn't the companies that have been getting the airwaves for free give a little back in the form of campaign ads?  And already, the public demand is there.

We also found that the majority of the public-- over 60%-- want to take the money factor out of elections. People ARE ready for this, just not the operators who parasitize the system, like McConnell.

Good piece but you missed a major reason the 1970s reforms failed.  The initial legislation capped both contributions and expenditures but Buckley v Valeo, brought by then NY Sen James Buckley (brother of William Buckley of the National Review), threw out the expenditure cap as a violation of free speech.  That case basically destroyed those reforms almost immediately after they went into effect.

I am big supporter of public financing - we have it for municipal elections in NY and it has helped even the playing field.  However, without a constitutional change to cap what millionaires can spend of their own money (think Mike Bloomberg, Ross Perot, Jon Corzine) it still has a fatal flaw.  It would be an improvement but far from perfect in my mind.

If structured properly, I don't think the cost would be huge.  

Network TV and radio stations have to run "X" number of hours of public service programming and commercials.  Take that time and dole it out to candidates on an equal basis.  The tv stations get to sell their normal commercial time to their usual vendors, perhaps taking a bit of a hit, ditto with radio.  Stipulate that debates are put on tv at a reasonable hour, but before prime-time.  In the midwest, that might be 6 pm.  Or on Saturday evening.  Something like that.  

In major cities, the government buys extra ad time, due to the number of races.

Then, each campaign is given an equal amount of money to purchase other needs (mailings, fliers, and the like).  A candidate has to raise $250,000 on his or her own, to ensure that they are 'serious' candidates, and the government matches that, capping the spending at $500k.  

Incumbents maintain a certain advantage due to name rec and other inherent advantages of incumbency.  

Senate races get a bit more, say $1 million max spending cap, with the candidate raising $500k on his own.  That puts the government's tab at $234 million every 2 years, plus the purchase of additional advertising spots for campaigns in major metro areas.  

Presidential races, on the other hand, are a different beast.  Say $50 million has to be raised by the campaign, with a $50 million match.  Max out spending at $125 million. In the primary, max spending is half that.  So, big corporations still have an advantage in Presidential elections, but I think that people will balk at having to pick up the entire tab.  

So, in non presidential years, we'll say that the total bill is $300 million, including $66 million for the purchase of additional tv time.  For presidential years, $500 million, including $116 million for additional tv time.

I just realized, as I hit "post", that I didn't do a good job factoring in primaries.  The cost would still be well under a billion in presidential years, and under a half billion in non presidential years, I think.

The main point is that by using time slots reserved for PSA's and other government-mandated programming that the biggest cost of campaigns is covered from the get-go.  

Our goal should be to remove the incentive for politicians to chase corporate dollars.  How we get there is open to debate, and there's plenty of room to experiment in the states with different methods.  

Would publicly funded elections not just give the swiftboaters of the world even more power in elections? You can't legitimately remove people's right to run ads that are political in nature, so you're ultimately stuck with "magic word" ads.  The more that candidates are restricted, the more freely money and airtime and influence flows into non-candidate entities no?

Here could be one possible solution from Mark Kleiman.
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006 /10/a_modest_proposal_for_campaign_finan ce_reform.php

You could allow voters to donate their $25 per year to a state level clean election fund.

And it must include free airtime for candidates.  There is no reason for television networks to get rich helping candidates mislead voters in 30 second spots.  Allow a few forums as part of the social contract which allows them free airtime.  (As for cable, they already provide the best coverage around on CSPAN.)  Maybe free airtime could be required of any cable station which describes itself as NEWS or INFORMATION.  If candidates could talk three of four times for twenty minutes, people would have a better idea of what they were getting when they voted.

This falls into the category of an uphill struggle that will ultimately be worth it. I don't see it passing, especially not over Bush's veto, and most of the impetus is going to have to come at state level until there's enough momentum behind the idea.

On the other hand, there is one massive advantage to it. It puts McCain in a terrible position - either he pisses off corporate Republicans or he can't use McCain-Feingold to show his bipartisanship.

matt -

what do you think about trading one transformational piece of legislation for another?  say, we will bury public financing for now, in favor of passage of Employee Free Choice Act?  after 2008 mcconnell will be much less relevant, so this may be the best they can get, and they might take it.