Public Election Financing Can Pay Off for California

Re “Shut the Political Tollbooth,” editorial, Jan. 3: The Times is to be congratulated on its position favoring the public financing of elections in California.

It’s hard to imagine that David Stockman’s judgment, “the hogs are really feeding,” was written in an almost innocent time about 20 years ago. We hadn’t seen anything yet. And now Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is uncloaking as hog caller in chief. It’s high time for the public to take back elections from the corporate predators.

Siegfried Othmer

Woodland Hills

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Public financing of campaigns may work, but it is not the only problem with California legislative campaigns. It remains that the legislative districts are by far the largest of any state in the union. State senators represent more people than most members of Congress, about 850,000 residents (some state governors represent fewer people!).

Campaigning in such large districts is profoundly expensive, requiring a lot of money in order to fund mailers and other voter education efforts. The gravity of campaigning in such large districts is prohibitive, making it difficult for the average person to seek elective office. Moreover, legislators are less accessible to the average citizens they represent. Creating smaller legislative districts would mean less expensive campaigns and more accessible public officials.

Jeffrey Prang

West Hollywood

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If Schwarzenegger proved anything with his whirlwind election, it’s that campaigns don’t need to be long. If California would shorten every election accordingly, we wouldn’t have to suffer the expense of extended advertising campaigns or the boredom of listening to redundant, negative ads that twist complex issues into oversimplified, misleading sound bites.

It’s ironic that the public owns the airwaves but we are letting broadcasters use our own airwaves to drive up the cost of elections and corrupt our political process. Maybe the public would approve of public financing if we realized how much more we could buy with clean money.

Helen H. Gordon

Santa Barbara

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The “pay-to-play” system of campaign financing has led to the domination of corporate interests in the formulation of our foreign policies. These policies have often led to the violation of the sovereignties of other nations, including the overthrow of many democratic governments and their replacement with more corporate-friendly dictatorships. Sept. 11 was small retribution for the damage we have done to many other countries. As our power increases, our incursions into the affairs of weaker nations will increase unless the citizens of this country create a government that represents their interests as opposed to the people who “pay to play.”

John M. Gault

Los Osos

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You are so right that California (and the nation, for that matter) needs public financing of elections. Getting big money out of the process could be a huge step toward democratizing the electoral process as well as providing voters an opportunity to select candidates who can represent them instead of the special interests that now influence our legislators. It would also allow legislators and other elected officials to dedicate their time and effort to the job of serving the people instead of spending at least half of their time raising money for their next campaign. After all, we pay their salaries through our taxes, and we should get our money’s worth from “our employees.”

Kjersten Jeppesen

Sun City