{"id":7381,"date":"2006-05-11T11:24:44","date_gmt":"2006-05-11T15:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7381"},"modified":"2006-05-11T11:24:44","modified_gmt":"2006-05-11T15:24:44","slug":"public-campaign-financing-finds-a-few-new-friends-but-remains-on-backburner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/public-campaign-financing-finds-a-few-new-friends-but-remains-on-backburner\/","title":{"rendered":"Public campaign financing finds a few new friends — but remains on backburner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it “incremental progress.” The number of high-profile supporters for [tag]public financing[\/tag] of federal political [tag]campaigns[\/tag] grew a little bigger<\/a> yesterday with a bi-partisan group of well-known former [tag]senators[\/tag].<\/p>\n

Just $6 per citizen is all it would take for Congress to fund publicly every federal campaign every year, contend four former U.S. senators.<\/p>\n

Democrats [tag]Bill Bradley[\/tag] of New Jersey and [tag]Bob Kerrey[\/tag] of Nebraska and Republicans [tag]Alan Simpson[\/tag] of Wyoming and [tag]Warren Rudman[\/tag] of New Hampshire plan to launch the nonpartisan effort to pay for federal campaigns on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Incumbents find it eternally necessary to raise big bucks for their next election nearly every single day,” Simpson said Wednesday. “It’s not only demeaning but it took a large chunk of time that could have been devoted to doing the public’s business. The time is now to go to voluntary public funding.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The announcement comes just a few months after Reps. [tag]David Obey[\/tag] (Wis.) and [tag]Barney Frank[\/tag] (Mass.) unveiled a proposal<\/a> for public funding of federal campaigns, which was followed by an announcement from Senate Democratic Whip [tag]Dick Durbin[\/tag] (D-Ill.) and Sen. [tag]Chris Dodd[\/tag] (D-Conn.) on their support<\/a> for a public financing system, which was followed by tepid-but-encouraging support<\/a> for the idea from Senate Ethics Committee Chairman [tag]George Voinovich[\/tag] (R-Ohio).<\/p>\n

Indeed, House Minority Leader [tag]Nancy Pelosi[\/tag] (D-Calif.) raised a few eyebrows over the weekend when she said, on Meet the Press<\/a>, that she would scrap the current system altogether. “I think we have to break the link completely,” she said.<\/p>\n

As encouraging as all of this is, Roll Call noted<\/a> today that congressional Dems like the idea, but aren’t yet prepared to push it.
\n<\/p>\n

[D]on’t expect Democrats — who need a net gain of 15 seats to reclaim the House majority they lost a dozen years ago — to push for an idea that opponents have long derided as “welfare for politicians,” either in the campaign or if they take control of Congress.<\/p>\n

“It’s her personal opinion,” Jennifer Crider, Pelosi’s spokeswoman, said Wednesday, downplaying the significance of the leader’s pronouncement. “It’s been her personal opinion for 20 years.”<\/p>\n

Even Democrats who back public financing say the issue isn’t likely to come up any time soon. “I don’t think that’s going to be the Democratic position on this” during the campaign, said Rep. [tag]Henry Waxman[\/tag] (Calif.). “Not all Democrats agree on that position … and there’s so much else to talk about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fine. I’d like to see more progress, but at this point, it’s about expanding the discussion and establishing an idea over the long term. Public financing, at this point, is not only slowly generating more support, it’s also picking up allies on both sides of the aisle. Progress is progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it “incremental progress.” The number of high-profile supporters for [tag]public financing[\/tag] of federal political [tag]campaigns[\/tag] grew a little bigger yesterday with a bi-partisan group of well-known former [tag]senators[\/tag]. Just $6 per citizen is all it would take for Congress to fund publicly every federal campaign every year, contend four former U.S. senators. Democrats [tag]Bill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}