Durbin, Specter offer public financing bill (Wizbang Politics)

Democratic Senator Richard Durbin and Republican Senator Arlen Specter have put forth a campaign finance bill which could provide full public financing for candidates for Congress. Elana Schor of The Hill reports:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), yesterday introduced a bill to allocate public money to candidates based on the population of their states, the price of TV ad time in their local media markets and their ability to meet minimum fundraising requirements.

The bill aims to "eliminate the very heavy drain on the time of elected officials as we prepare for reelection campaigns," Specter said, questioning the position that a judicial precedent exists for prohibiting campaign-finance limits.

Read the whole article at the link above. It gets better - they also want to give public money to candidates running against wealthy, self-financed opponents or who are attacked by independent groups or who just feel under-funded. Okay, I made that last one up, but it would hardly surprise anyone if they included it.

Sorry, Senators, that your three-days-a-week work schedule for nine months with full benefits is so taxing that your fundraising is such a "very heavy drain on the time of elected officials." Perhaps you should take your generous pensions and retire, and become lobbyists? I mean, it breaks my heart that you find yourselves sooooooo busy . . .

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Comments (1)

Public financing of campaig... (Below threshold)

1. Posted by superdestroyer | March 23, 2007 7:23 AM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)

superdestroyer:

Public financing of campaigns gives a huge advantage to leftist NGO's and other permanent activst groups while basically destroying the Republican Party.

If public financing of elections is passed, the only relevent election in the U.S. will be the Democratic Primary for elections without a sitting incumbent.

Posted on March 23, 2007 07:23