O'Brien's proposed "pay me to run" campaign finance method reeks of Koch Brother funded special interest Super-PAC bullshit to me. It may basically sound god, but still has more holes than a Salvation Army suit.

I need a new keyboard--!!!! Correction: It may basically sound good....

Public financing of elections is the only way to go. It's simple. If you qualify for running (whatever the criteria are), you get your share of the pot for that race. You can't use any other money, gifts, etc. That is your bucket. Your opponent has the same rules.

This gets private money (which is not speech) out of the equation and reduces the corrupting influence of same on our elections.

That wasn't the point of the Supreme Court ruling in the Arizona case. They didn't claim that Arizona's model infringed upon a candidates ability to raise private funds. Rather, they claimed that privately funded candidates were unjustly burdened by a particular disincentive; that if they privately raised enough money, the model's matching scheme would kick in and their publicly funded opponents would receive roughly equal money. So by raising and spending private funds, well-funded candidates would "trigger" public money going to their opponents. This constitutes a form of punishment, according the majority. Unfortunately, both the Lump Sum model and the Matching Funds model floated by the committee report you mention include just such a trigger, granting extra money to public candidates if they get outspent by privately funded candidates. So, both models here are unconstitutional. Further, the price-tag you mention (2.3 to 3.2 million per annum it says in the committee report) is predicated on the assumption that extra funds will go to match being outspent by a privately funded candidate (the report is clear about this). Given the Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona, these projections are irrelevant.

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I understand the concept, but to be frank, I don't think city elections are the worst in this regard. For starters, much campaigning at the municipal level can be done effectively by holding meetings in cafes and such, sort of like the New Hampshire Primary. What would help a lot more would be public debates held in places like vacant Sports Stadiums, provided for free to create dialogue.

@3: I'm not all the way convinced, but thank you for your food for thought.

The company I work for flies in candidates for the jobs we have open, so members of the team have the chance to know them better before we decide who we want to hire. I see the City Council proposal the same way: people need the chance to talk with the candidates so we can pick the best one to represent us. I don't see a job interview as "supporting someone's position", like the guy from the Chamber of Commerce suggests. Typically, when you interview you want to have a number of choices; we "support" the one we hire. The thing that's broken about elections now is that we're drowned in advertising from factions who want to push _their_ representatives on us. If we want to hear from a set of distinct options, I think _we_ need to pay to have them speak to us.

If we publicly funded candidates, there would also have to be a city/county-wide ban on any independent expenditures on behalf of the candidate. And, on fundraising as well. On top of that, there needs to be an oversight department. If rules were followed and maintained, it could be great.

I support this system.

@5 is my favorite bot account ever. Please keep him around. He's so polite.

In a way,those same politicians are already taking our money (via the donors who overcharge for evils and disservices,don't pay any or not their fair share of fares,fees,fines,taxes,and tolls as owners of corporate "persons"). ---- http://theyrule.net ----LEARN FROM EUROPE.