political reform
I'm a skeptic about campaign finance reform.
Ron Faucheux once told me the history of campaign finance reform is the history of incumbents enacting rules that make it harder for challengers to beat incumbents.
What political reform would benefit Illinois?
Ron Faucheux once told me the history of campaign finance reform is the history of incumbents enacting rules that make it harder for challengers to beat incumbents.
What political reform would benefit Illinois?
posted by Carl Nyberg at 1:10 PM
2 Comments:
I'll let Jeff Trigg, who I thought for sure would have beat me here, explain why non-incumbants and third party candidates should enjoy the same rules for getting on the ballot as incumbants. They way it is now is exactly what Ron is talking about.
One thing I'd like to see is allowing all registered voters to vote by mail. I think a lot more people would vote.
Who me? Too funny, Marie, you have me pegged. An easing/equalization of ballot access laws is a start. Lowering the established party threshhold back down to 1% or 2% will help. The biggest improvement would be ending the practice of gerrymandering, which is the biggest incumbent protection vehicle there is. Multi-member districts would lessen the negative impact of entrenched incumbents.
I like same-day voter registration. I'm open to mail votes, but would need to think about that more, however. I don't particularly like term-limits, but that would do it.
Allowing more/higher limit of anonymous donations would help, although would be hugely controversial. A lot of people are afraid to give to third parties or even long-shot challengers because they fear a backlash from their employers or customers.
The biggest reform needs to come from the media actually paing more attention and doing better reporting on the lower level offices. Not that government needs to force them to, but they do need to do it on their own. I'm almost to the point of wanting a law forcing debates to include all candidates on the ballot.
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