CAPS ON GIVING AND PUBLIC FINANCING OF CAMPAIGNS

It seems like a trendy thing these days for progressives to be in favor of limiting private giving and publicly financing campaigns. Our state has wisely avoided doing that. We are a "disclosure" jurisdiction. There are no limits on contributions and there is no prohibition against corporate giving. The campaign just has to report its financial activities.

I guess there are two essential reasons for that, one legal and one practical. First, nobody's every really figured out how to do all that without limiting potential givers' first amendment rights. Second, and probably much more important, there are as many wealthy democrat givers in this state as there are republicans. Both parties have a disincentive to pass caps or public financing. I think that is a good thing.

Policitical fundraising is a discreet skill, that skill can help win elections. Someone with that hard earned advantage should not have it taken away when running for public office. Someone who has been diligent and clever and assembled a bunch of money should not have her right to give it away to a cause she believes in. And the clincher for me is that, if we equally and governmentally fund campaigns, it is only going to increase the power of "cause" PAC's who don't play by quite the same rules and could actually help chosen Illinois candidates from locations out of Illinois, avoiding our rules altogether.

Illinois has passed a lot of ethics rules for politicians and officials and that's fine. It hasn't changed the basic approach to political money. Voters can still get on the Web and "follow the money".