Always wonderful ideas, but they just get talked about Let's get this done, Should have been done with the secret ballot.

Great to see Salon finally doing a piece on campaign finance. Dissapointing to see them hand it off to Farhad Manjoo. Pleasantly suprising to see him write up a very good treatment of the issue. I would hope this is the first in a series of articles designed to inform the readers and foment policy debate.

I believe that campaign finance is one of the most important factors in arranging good government. I also believe that it is an issue wholly suited to Salon's talent for provoking discussion, and its readers' talent for providing a panacea of points of view. The various and subtle perspectives that are solicited here supply the strikes and counter-strikes needed to hammer out a fair, balanced, and effective policy approach to campaign finance.

So far, unfortunately, most of what I have seen doesn't get as far as understanding the proposals Manjoo discusses (awesome last name, by the way). Unique number ammounts would be confounded as a donor identifier by the randomizing, 'packet deposit' structure proposed for FEC handling of donations. It would take relatively little computing power and fairly straightforward programming logarithms to realize these measures; there would be no need to track a donor-id, only the dollar ammount and the account destination. What is required doesn't come close to the data and interface complexities that the IRS has been (unsuccessfully) trying to address programatically (esp. stupid, when you consider a shifting tax code tied to political winds).

All that aside, there are some problems with the proposals. To begin, I don't think that it is a good idea to put voter contributions in direct competition with corporate donations, via a 'donation voucher'- it can only serve to drive the cost to both the private and public sector way up. The method of matching public financing figures to private campaign contributions does, by design, level the financial playing field. In contrast to the proposal in the article however, this alternative works to drive campaign spending down , making it cheaper for everyone as it fights quid pro quo- as one reader points out, who would bother throwing money at one candidate if they knew that the opposition would automatically receive the same ammount from the public fund?

Making that adjustment AND adopting anonymous donations, while certainly not the ideal, would form a reliable and effective backbone for true 'one citizen, one vote' elections. Equal media time and such things are part of a larger battle for anti-trust reform, to be fought later when we have strengthened our control through elections reform. One battle which must be fought in parallel to this one however, is election procedure and equipment standardization. That federal elections are conducted on the same machines as state elections gives federal authority over the machines and procedures of all elections. What good is cutting off the finance arm of election fraud, if it can bludgeon you with its vote-rigging arm instead?

Overall a good article and a good start at a reform proposal- as well as some informed suggestions in the letters. High marks all around!

does not matter ...the guys with the money will get what they want...as they do now...with Republicans especially...do more Repulicans go to jail for crime related to their office? if so, I say the system is as good as it gets.

Just watch listen and investigate...if your in control of committees...which the Democrats are...time for the feathers to fly...with all this loss of privacy i keep hearing about...it should be pretty easy to spy on our leaders...come on NSA CIA FBI employees...start leaking to the internets.

Sorry, I may be missing a basic point, but what is the argument for allowing people or groups to pay anything at all to political campaigns? Or from the other perspective, what is the argument for politicians to receive donations from supporters or use their own wealth to run a campaign? I don't interpret real democracy to be a competition of represented wealth, which is what a system of campaign support promotes. Why should a rich man be given more representation? Because he has more "at stake", more to lose? Yes, on the surface we all own the right to vote, an equal footing, but I cannot help but feel that representation in American democracy is granted on the basis of who has more wealth at stake, rather than how many single votes one acquires. Any representation beyond the vote-- that is, with influence other than the vote-- is most undemocratic in the purest sense.

Let us then revisit the First Amendment's "right to petition" as a place to start our debate on reform? The influence of corporations and interest groups should be severed from politics altogether or kept to the bearable minimum.

Judging by many of the comments it’s quite obvious that some people misunderstood the proposal in part or in whole. The Ackerman-Ayres proposal has real merit. Of course, it’s slightly different from my own ideas, but, I’m sure we all have a plan.

What some commenters missed was the wisdom of the blind contributions portion of Ackerman-Ayres. Blind contributions would discourage participation by quid-pro-quo class contributors. This wouldn’t eliminate large contributions from ideological contributors but the fact that the great majority of funding comes from the public at large would make donations from this class a much smaller part of the whole. I’ve been to enough fund raisers to know that eliminating the identity factor, even for ideological contributors, would put a big chill on private donations. I would remove all incentive for private donations by matching private contributions with a grant of public money to the other candidate. Under any public funding plan, under the table contributions should be punished with jail time for both contributor and recipient.

There is a subtle, added bonus in the voucher portion of the Ackerman-Ayres plan. Presenting vouchers to ALL registered citizens just might increase awareness and participation in the electoral process and encourage actual public debate on major issues. This part of the plan is nothing less than a sorely needed infusion of democracy.

Today, incumbents are required to spend an enormous amount of time raising funds for their next campaign. Needless to say this situation greatly dilutes the time available for doing the public’s business. For all that’s asked of today’s elected officials its little wonder that the quality of people willing to run for office has, over the past couple of decades, declined. Current campaign funding practices only succeed in reinforcing this downward trajectory.

Short of Ackerman-Ayres, penalties for breaking current campaign laws should be stiffened significantly. ALL violations should involve mandatory jail time in addition to draconian fines.

People who object to public funding have missed the point that ‘letting George do it’ ultimately means that all of the public pays the high price of bought, privately owned government. The cost of this plan in tax dollars is virtually insignificant compared with total ‘on budget’ federal expenditures. Some public funding plan that eliminates the impact of large contributors is absolutely essential to preserve the republic.