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Aaron on Campaign Finance Reform

Aaron Swartz is pointing out the solution to the biggest problem facing the United States today. Or at least, that's what I called it about eleven months ago on this blog. The impending war and our helplessness to do anything about it led me to say,

the most important issue facing this country today is, of all things, campaign finance reform. (emphasis in original!)

I still believe this and am amazed at the brilliance of the solution Aaron advocates. Of course, that may be because I suggested something similar last October. I said,

I believe this may be the most pressing issue facing our country. Yes, worse than terrorism. The terrorists of 9/11 struck once over two years ago, but the corporate terrorists that control our government are terrorizing our country every day. I want radical reform. The government should give the candidates from each party that had at least x% of the vote in the last election the exact same amount of money (and let me tell you it ain't 100 million) and should mandate the major networks give each of these candidates the exact same amount of air time (free). Remember, they are the people's airwaves and we just lease them to NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. For an important civic cause like this, we can take the airwaves back.

The key difference in the plan Aaron advocates and mine is that his plan provides greater access. My party-based prior-election percentage idea tends to lock out third parties, whereas the solution Aaron advocates opens the process up to anyone who can complete the $5 fund-raising scheme. I am pretty much sold on this version, although I do need to learn more about it. It has to be structured so as to avoid the problem California faced in its ridiculous recall election where there where over 100 candidates because getting on the ballot had such a low barrier to entry. That was absurdly costly as it was, so we certainly cannot have in place a system that also gives all these crackpots several million dollars for a big campaign. But the fact that such a scheme is working in two states already is great news on this front. I love it. Now, let's force our Congress (and our states) to adopt such reforms! You can write your reps now.

Posted by Brian at February 11, 2004 09:52 AM | TrackBack