State Needs Clean Money

By Steve Kane, Letter to the Editor

To paraphrase an expression: Money tends to corrupt, and lots of money corrupts absolutely.

The California Clean Money Campaign has a different idea. Clean Money is a voluntary system of publicly funded political campaigns for elected statewide and legislative offices. The bill sets up a system for cleanly financed state elections and, if passed, would place a measure on the ballot to adopt public financing for all statewide and legislative races in California. It is patterned after the successful Clean Money systems now working in Arizona and Maine.

For a trivial amount of money â€" compared with the overall state budget â€" the people of California can ensure that elected officials are beholden to the voters only. It is time for the people of California to act before the only voices in government are millionaires and corporations.

â€" Steve Kane,Thousand Oaks

(The writer is co-chairman of California Clean Money Campaign Ventura County. â€" Editor)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)