Campaign Spending and Special Interests

By Craig Dunkerley, Letter to the Editor

This article highlights the need for public campaign financing that compensates candidates who opt in for the difference between what they can receive and spend, and what their special-interest-funded opponents (who opt out) receive and spend.

For a candidate to run in such a "clean money" system is an essential public service, not a taxpayer burden. The cost is minuscule, and elected officials who don't owe favors to special interests after the election are invaluable. Such systems are now successfully being used in Arizona and Maine, and are up for consideration in California in January. Clean money means fair elections.

Craig Dunkerley

San Jose

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