Phil Yost (Opinion, March 7) correctly points out that clean elections like the system proposed in AB 2949 will not eliminate independent expenditures. But he fails to point out the merits of public campaign financing, thus understating the power of clean elections.

The power I speak of is the freedom provided to politicians who no longer have to focus on fundraising. Instead, cleanly elected officials like those in Arizona and Maine spend more time listening to their constituents, rather than lobbyists, and more time tending to matters of policy.

Clean elections are not a panacea, but they are a much better system than the one currently in place.

Eric Pawlowsky
San Francisco