Just $6

Via He of the Kickass Beard, I find my way to Just $6, a campaign generate grassroots support for publicly financed campaigns. Americans for Campaign Reform is a bipartisan group whose honorary chairs are Democrats Bill Bradley and Bob Kerrey, and Republicans Warren Rudman and Alan Simpson. The basics:

Congress would only have to spend $6 per citizen per year to publicly fund each and every election for the House, the Senate and the White House. When you consider that "pork barrel" projects cost every one of us more than $200 last year alone, it’s no contest.

Think of it. With public funding, wealthy special interests and their hired lobbyists would no longer have a commanding influence over our politics and government. Instead of begging for campaign donations, candidates would spend their time communicating with voters. Once elected, our leaders would be free to focus on our nation's challenges rather than having to worry about financing their next campaign. And there's no doubt that more of our most able leaders would run for federal office when the ability to finance a campaign isn't such a daunting obstacle.

Americans for Campaign Reform is building a nonpartisan grassroots movement of citizens who support voluntary public funding and want Congress to act now. We can make this happen. Public funding is already working in Arizona and Maine, and was just passed by the Connecticut legislature.

As citizens we can complain about the corrosive influence of our election finance system, or we can do something about it. With your help, we can mobilize citizens across the country and put pressure on Congress to enact real reform.

Americans shouldn't have to be buy the ability to influence the decisions that affect our lives or access to the decision-makers. Urge your representative to consider supporting this idea to make sure that our democracy is returned solely to the hands of voters, rather than being held hostage by money and lobbyists. It only took me a minute to make my opinion known to my rep via their petition—doesn’t get easier than that.