Campaign Finance Reform Made Easy!

The Congress seems unable or unwilling to approach this subject from a logical point of view - but I am not!

The problem of Campaign Finance Reform can be cured by adopting the following three rules:

1. If you are not a voting constituent you can not be a contributing benefactor.

 
2. All candidates must keep scrupulous records of all campaign contributions (date, type, name, address and amount) and of all campaign expenses. These records are to be available for public inspection on demand.

 
3. If you are a contributing benefactor, you may expect your name, city and amount to appear in the press.

 

We should probably place a limit on the amount that any one voter may contribute to any one candidate for any one election. Perhaps $1000 would be a reasonable limit.

Further, we should probably specify the interval during which such contributions may be made and received. Perhaps that interval should begin two years before the election in which the candidate is to participate and end 5 days before the date of the election.

We may need to have additional legislation to control 'soft money' that would allow Political Parties, Special Interest Groups, etc, to spend their own funds to promote a cause, such as more money for education or for the military, but not allow the promotions to mention a Political Party nor a candidate directly or by inference.

Consideration should be given to exempting newspaper and other media news reporters from making editorial comments related to a candidate's stand on any issue but not to directly advocate the election or defeat of a given candidate.