Clean Elections; Moore Questions
Wednesday - March 08, 2006
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Del.icio.us“Clean Elections” has a great sound to it, doesn’t it? Who wants Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Elections?
And who would go for it if they had called it Paid By Your Probably-Increased Taxes Elections?
That’s what’s involved, you know. In the first phase, we’d pay for the campaigns of every State House candidate who could raise $5 from 200 registered voters in a district. Eventually, we’d finance every Tom, Dick and Henrietta running for every state office who wants public money.
The concept pushed by the group Voter Owned Hawaii is that if politicians don’t need private-donation campaign money, they won’t be obliged to donors who want something back.
Of course, we are all special interest constituents wanting something back - regardless if it’s for private donations or public donations. Ko Olina wants tax credits. I want an end to those “gentleman’s farm” subdivisions.
Whose ox gets hay and whose gets gored?
The current problems are with the ideologies of the politicians, not just the sources of their money. I don’t think many law-makers vote for union causes just because the union gave them money. They were pro-union going in.
Do those of you who oppose pro-business legislation think the successful pro-business law-makers would be dumped by a Clean Elections candidate? That a Sam Slom or a Fred Hemmings would suddenly be gone? No. Most Dicks and Janes in their districts agree with them, regardless of the sources of their funding.
Sure, public funding would allow a lot of small Joes and Janes to run on our dimes who cannot run now because they can’t raise dimes on their own. But there’s nothing that guarantees that small Joes or Janes would be better for us than, say, big Bens or Lindas with their private-donation millions.
I’m not against Clean Elections or Voter Owned Hawaii. I’m just not for the idea and realize there’s a reason why no states but Maine and Arizona have been for it, either.
And then my bottom-line question:
Why should I be required to give my tax money to help a candidate I detest and want defeated?
One of the interesting questions readers e-mail me is why Joe Moore didn’t resign at KHON if he truly felt that bad about the new owners?
No anchor is ever held to a contract if he doesn’t want to be on air and doesn’t cross over to the competition. Bob Sevey resigned in ‘86, I did in ‘94 and Jade Moon did last year. We’d all had enough of consultants and bean counters.
Nine managers resigned at Channel 2 and one was terminated.
Moore made all the noise, but stayed on with those horrible new owners. Curious.
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