Seattle Could Create An Entirely New Way To Fund Elections
Via Huffington Post:
“In a little over a month, Seattle voters will go to the polls with the opportunity to create a brand new, first-in-the-country system of publicly financed city elections.
The Honest Elections Seattle ballot initiative, which is up for a citywide vote on Nov. 3, would create a system of “democracy vouchers” in the city. Under the program, every registered voter in the city would receive four $25 coupons to be used only as campaign donations to candidates for city election. The initiative would also lower campaign contribution limits, increase ethics enforcement, ban lobbyist and city contractor contributions, increase transparency and tighten other campaign finance and lobbying rules while upping legal penalties for breaking them.
It is the publicly funded voucher system, though, that has supporters from the city and around the country most excited. The chance to create and test a novel approach to democratizing the financing of political campaigns presents a huge opportunity for those looking to fix the current imbalance in favor of the wealthiest donors in the campaign landscape — an imbalance exacerbated by multiple Supreme Court decisions gutting limits on campaign donations from corporations and the wealthiest Americans.”
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