On Campaign Finance Reform and Special Elections 8-8-25

Every major problem that the world faces today is caused by the power yielded by big money. In particular, is the influence of money in politics. It is simply not credible that a high dollar contribution to a dark money political fund does not come with strings attached. Ordinary Americans have recognized this problem for generations but an effective solution has never been implemented.

The problem is complicated when considering local, state and national politics so the focus here will be on the 2024 national elections. Outlining the problem is meaningless without providing a solution. Being not the most verdant mind on the planet and recognizing that I too may be subject to silo information implores me to encourage comments and suggestions.

For the two presidential candidates, 435 house candidates and the 33 senate candidates the total spent was about 21.8 billion dollars. This includes money spent by the candidates, party spending and 15.5 billion in PAC spending. This works out to about 45 million dollars per candidate to get jobs paying less than $500,000 per year. This also works out to about $145 dollars per voter. I think that the problem and perhaps the solution is obvious. We tried public financing which was a joke and a failure. Who gets to choose where the financing goes? Not we the people.

So here is a suggested solution (which is not a new idea by the way). The idea here is to swamp special interest money by giving power to individual voters. If each registered voter were given $200 every two years to donate to local, state or national candidate/s (and only candidates) of their choice it would overwhelm the big money donors (dark money in particular). This would come as a cost of course, but compared to the cost that we all pay for bad policy it would be well worth it IMHO.

The second suggestion is to get rid of all "special" elections. Damn it, most of us work and have busy lives and simply do not have the time to responsibly participate so often. Much of the time these additional elections are special interest elections with important implications on issues requiring research that few participate in.

A prime example of why we need this change is the controversy in Texas August of 2025. Democrats have fled the state to prevent a gerrymandering redistricting effort by the GOP. An act of integrity to defend the law and democracy? Well, many of them fled to Illinois, one of the most gerrymandered states in the union, a disgusting display of hypocrisy.

I personally know many smart, accomplished and ethical people who I would much rather have as president than Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.