Public Campaign Funds Curb Corruption

“U.S., State May Merge L.A. Probes,” April 10: If the allegations of corruption are correct, I wonder how many of my tax dollars have been wasted on noncompetitive city contracting. The U.S. attorney’s office, L.A. County district attorney, FBI and U.S. Department of Transportation will combine their probes of corruption in L.A. city government, as there are allegations that contractors were required to donate to political campaigns in order to be eligible for city contracts. This just seems to be the ongoing saga of “politics as usual” for our city, but we know this goes on in state and federal government too.

Candidates need a lot of money to run an election campaign, and where do they go for donations? The large donors. We need to change this system. AB 2949 has been introduced in the state Assembly. It would start publicly funded campaigns at the state level. We can start at the state level, then later do the same for cities.

Mary Jane Zorick

Los Angeles