Cheney's visit

By Lynn Davidson, Letter to the Editor

For once the Richard Pombo campaign told the truth about election campaigns with its opening prayer : "Lord, tonight is all about raising money."

This is true for all campaigns, not just Pombo's, and not just for one night. It is noteworthy, however, that Dick Cheney raised $200,000 for Pombo, putting him even further ahead of all his opponents in fund raising.

The unspoken other half of the deal is that after the election, the rest of the elected officials' terms are spent paying back those rich donors who funded their campaigns with deregulation, lowered health and safety standards, tax loopholes and similar favors. No wonder California has the third-highest poverty rate in the country, when the rich own our government!

The people could turn this around by buying back control of the state ourselves by publicly financing campaigns for about $5 per year per adult Californian.

To support a voluntary system of public financing, we must encourage our senators to pass AB 583, the Clean Money bill, and to support the nurses' Clean Money initiative, which will probably be on the November ballot.

Lynn Davidson
Berkeley

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