Quote:
|
Originally Posted by sperry
Try this: Require all candidates to have a "party". Your party must have 50,000 (or some logical arbitary number large enough to prevent crack-pots) members. Once you've got enough members, your party can run, and will recieve their fair share of the campaign finance pool.
Or, more simply, limit the total amount anyone can spend on a campaign to say $1 million, and don't bother with dividing it all up.
|
I'm not sure what the answer is. I doubt the first option would hold up to legal challenges... requiring all campaign donations to be pooled means by definition that someone couldn't raise money on their own; so anyone not selected to be part of the pool is for all intents and purposes excluded from running for a national office. Requiring someone to be from a "party" to get a share of the pool means arbitrary definitions like you said, and I'd venture to guess that arbitrary restrictions like that on someone's right to run for political office would be ruled un-constitutional.
The second option might be a step in the right direction but could probably be weaseled around by someone with enough money, or who had "friends" with enough money... like a "friend" in each state who just happened to set up a state-wide calling campaign to tell people how much they liked that particular candidate.