And I would have to agree.
The Green Party says HR 4694, touted for public financing of Congressional campaigns, is biased against third parties. Originally posted at Democracy in Action.
Now, the bill does a number of good things, including barring paid, professional petition-signature gatherers. (Not sure how this or other bill provisions will pass the "money is speech" SCOTUS sniffer, but that's another story.
But, there are legitimate third-party concerns. Look below the fold.
A 10 percent of the total vote bar for partial funding is too high; 5 percent, or even 3 percent for a dribble of partial funding, would be much better. After all, 5 percent is the bar for presidential elections
Now, I don't believe the Green Party's official claim that liberal Democrats are sponsoring this bill because of a panic over a Green insurgency. Nonetheless, it has troubling provisions, most notably this.
Section 301: Section 315 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 441a) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection;
`(k) No person may make any independent expenditure with respect to an election for the office of Representative in, or Delegate or Resident Commissioner to, the Congress.'.
So, if you fall below 10 percent of total votes on a petition as a third-party candidate, and don't qualify for the federal "grassroots" funding, that apparently means you can't spend anything on the campaign? That's what it looks like.
And I don't blame the Greens for screaming bloody murder.
Sections 302 and 325 go too far on restricting "attack ads," too.
Plus, it does nothing to address spiraling TV time costs with the stick of TV broadcast license review.
Anyway, beyond the reasons I already mentioned, I think there's a snowball's chance in hell this passes legal muster, at least in it's current form.
So, the magic question is, just how flawed is this bill as it stands?