Additional `Letters to the Editor'
By Russ Harden, Letter to the editor
As we watch in disgust, politicians continue to succumb to
the temptations of the corrupt candied apples hanging from
the money trees of each generation's lobbyists and campaign
finance gurus. Of course, lobbyists like Abramoff, those
rich enough to buy their services, and the politicians who
eat the apples can win or lose. But we, the general public,
consistently lose because we aren't even in the game. So,
let's shut out everyone who wants to donate more than $5 to
anyone's campaign. Let's set up a system which makes larger
donations from huge corporations, labor unions, and the
filthy rich both bad politics and bad investments! I'm not
joking! It's called public campaign financing ("Clean
Money").
Arizona, Maine and Connecticut have already adopted
bipartisan Clean Money legislation to make public financing
of campaigns a reality, and it's working better than even
its opponents expected. As stated by Anne Spanier and Judy
Cox in the Jan. 5 San Francisco Chronicle Op. Ed.page,
"Labor and conservative forces in both states (Maine and
Arizona), initially skeptical about the system, now endorse
it." Of course no single state needs Clean Money more than
California, where the encouraging news is that AB 583 was
approved by the Elections Committee last week. Hopefully it
will also be approved by the appropriations committee on
Wednesday, 1-18. But only as the public learns more about
the California Clean Money Campaign (CAclean.org), and
voices its support for it to our legislators will the
legislation become the reform so needed in California (and
eventually nationwide). Clean Money is probably our only
way, finally, to chop down the Abramoff trees.
See the article on San Jose Mercury News website