Fighting corruption: The big picture
Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:
Yesterday, ICPR's blog noted ways that individual people can fight corruption. Today, we're happily surprised by the timing of an editorial in the Kankakee Daily Journal, which offers a helpful catalog of ways that the State of Illinois can act.
Their editorial, which notes Gov. Ryan as the latest in a too-long line of incarcerated ex-governors (and which asks, "is Gov. Rod Blagojevich next?") offers a thought-provoking list of ideas that would serve as a good starting point for any legislator wondering what to file for next Spring. Passing HB 1 is only a starting point, the Daily Journal notes. After that's accomplished (or, I assume, sooner, if HB 1 remains bottled up), they offer these ideas:
* Donations from gambling interests ought to be barred.
* Unused campaign donations ought to be given back at the end of a campaign, or given to charity. No more stockpiling of money.
* Donations given to one campaign should not be shifted to another. Our system now runs too much money through the Big Four (House and Senate leaders of both parties). The result is a concentration of power and a stranglehold of ideas. We're seeing it now.
* Donations from outside political districts ought to be restricted. Chicago cash should not be poured into downstate.
ICPR has supported some of these ideas before, including oversight of giving by regulated industries, and limits on transfers. Others may be, in our opinion, unnecessary to get at the root of the problem. Our positions aside, we applaud the Daily Journal for offering their thoughts and encourage all Illinoisans to join the discussion.
Individual people can do a lot to stamp out corruption. But the General Assembly can do more, too.
4 comments:
This sounds like the Kankakee paper wants to move towards the crazy federal campaign financing system that we have today. The federal government has numerous restrictions on campaign finance, yet the money keeps flowing. It is so bad that Presidential candidates have to take contributions for their compliance fund.
Look, Illinois isn't perfect, but we do have one of the best disclosure systems in the country. The state board of elections website is very user friendly. Anyone can look up how much a person contributed or how much was transfered between committees. Yes, some reforms are needed, but to go as far as ICPR wants to go we would get in Illinois the insane system that exists on the Federal level.
David,
What principles are you basing your opinions upon?
Do we ever question the absurd proposition that there is "too much money in politics?"
In a rational world, donations to politicians would be tax deductible with virtually no cap.
While I could easily agree that such thing as returning money and/or shifting money around are part of the current corrupt scheme, all of those problems stem from the nonsense that there is 'too much money.'
We allow corporations to deduct billions spent on advertising their often worthless products, but the ideas and the candidates that espouse them are left to suck up to 2 corrupt parties and the trough-feeding porkers who run them.
Every campaign finance law from the beginning of time was passed by incumbents who merely want permanent protections.
If you designed decent metrics defining competitive districts and competitive elections cross referenced that with laws limiting campaign spending, I'll bet you could prove that campaign finance laws are directly to blame for the mess this state (and the nation) is in.
Campaign laws should consist of only full, and immediate, disclosure, combined with massive penalties for failure to disclose.
Further, some one ought to apply the "Equal Protection Clause" to political parties. Citizens that can't find a home in either the Republican or Democrat parties are clearly not represented in this country.
How about limiting donors to registered voters. This would stop unions, corporations, children from making donations. In fact should be limited to registered Illinois voters of district that official is running in.
"Speech is to money as money is to speech. To limit one is to limit the other speech."
--- Justice "Harry" Potter Stewart
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