Yes, this is about clean, publicly funded elections. So what you say?--If you are a college student who has watched your tuitions go up year after year, thank a lobbyist for the student loan providers. If you are struggling to pay for medicine, thank a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. If you are outraged at how someone can so easily get a gun and go on a killing spree, thank a gun industry lobbyist. Chances are your representative has been thanked by a lobbying group with a contribution to their campaign war chest. Does this mean your representative is in the pocket of these groups? I'm not the one who can answer that for you. Ask your representatives.
Clean election legislation does two very important things: 1) It takes influence away from the few and puts it back where it belongs, with "we, the people". 2) It encourages good people with good ideas to step into the political ring--money is the single largest obstacle for most people to enter politics.
From the folks at the Public Campaign Action:
Voter Owned Iowa is holding a rally tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 p.m. at the Capitol in support of the Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections (VOICE) Act that would bring full public financing to Iowa's legislative races. After the rally, we'll be lobbying individual members of the General Assembly on the VOICE Act.
The VOICE Act (introduced in both legislative chambers as House File 805 and Senate File 553) would allow candidates in Iowa to seek office without having to appeal to wealthy special interests for campaign contributions. Once elected, the legislators who ran using the VOICE system would be accountable only to the voters who elected them, not well-heeled contributors who would have otherwise funded their campaigns.
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