Click the links for each issue to read the exact ballot wording, as well as the Ballot Board arguments for and against each issue.
I find the arguments Against issue 3 to be particularly telling (and ironic), since the proposed "campaign finance reform" doesn't decrease corruption, it just isolates it to a particular subset of carefully-chosen special interest groups.
I find some of the arguments against issue 3 to be rather disingenuous, since it's really only the rich who can take advantage of the current rules (which the statehouse Republicans pushed through not too long ago) allowing contributions of $10,000 per person of any age. Under the current rules, a family of two parents and two elementary school kids can contribute more to a single candidate than I make in a year. Under issue 3, that same family could contribute $4000, forcing the candidate to get support from a lot more people.
They're the ones who would be released from existing spending limits on their own money when running for office, if Issue 3 passes.
So if Bob Wealthy is running against Jim Poor, issue 3 would now allow Bob to spend as much of his own money on his campaign as he likes. Jim, in contrast, will have lots of new regulations preventing him from gathering enough contributions to compete on something resembling equal footing.
To paraphrase Reading Rainbow's Levar Burton, "don't take my word for it." It's in the approved ballot language:
"Provide for no limits on a candidate’s capacity to spend his or her own money in connection with his or her own campaign, and have the effect of repealing existing law allowing an opponent to be exempt from contribution limits."
Re: The richchronarchyNovember 7 2005, 23:17:33 UTC
*nods* Alright, I'll buy that. And yet, I'm not sure that such people actually exist. Coming from a not-so-bad-off background, I know my family never had that kind of money, nor have I ever met anyone who did.
Businesses, yeah. . . but individuals? Never one. People, especially rich ones, are always so darn stingy with their cash. I dunno. I just think that, as a group, they're more rare than Sasquatch.
I wonder where the term Sasquatch came from. . . ? According to my dictionary, it's Halkomelem. Very interesting.
Sorry. I got sidetracked.
I'm continually amused how much more important the political stuff in my joural seems to be to people.
Personally, I thought the omen was the most important part of the weekend.
Um, if the rich (by the definition I just gave) didn't exist, they wouldn't be pumping so much money into preventing the rules from being changed to no longer favor them. And they're not stingy about investments when they think they're getting more back than they're putting in. To them, contributing tens of thousands of dollars to a candidate is an investment, because in return they're getting influence when that candidate wins, in turn getting them business deals or huge tax cuts.
The political stuff affects most of us. The omens only affect you.
Come to think of it, you're right that the truly rich are pretty rare, but that's the point. There are maybe a few hundred people who can make use of the current Ohio rules, and under those rules those people are able to have more impact on our elections than you and I.
http://www.lwvohio.org/members/postboard/september2005/voterservice.html
Click the links for each issue to read the exact ballot wording, as well as the Ballot Board arguments for and against each issue.
I find the arguments Against issue 3 to be particularly telling (and ironic), since the proposed "campaign finance reform" doesn't decrease corruption, it just isolates it to a particular subset of carefully-chosen special interest groups.
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Thanks for the link.
Just one more fun thing for a Monday, you know :)
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They're the ones who would be released from existing spending limits on their own money when running for office, if Issue 3 passes.
So if Bob Wealthy is running against Jim Poor, issue 3 would now allow Bob to spend as much of his own money on his campaign as he likes. Jim, in contrast, will have lots of new regulations preventing him from gathering enough contributions to compete on something resembling equal footing.
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Heh. Sorry. A side IM conversation has me talking in bad old-forms.
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"Provide for no limits on a candidate’s capacity to spend his or her own money in connection with his or her own campaign, and have the effect of repealing existing law allowing an opponent to be exempt from contribution limits."
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Those who can afford to contribute $40,000 per household per candidate.
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Businesses, yeah. . . but individuals? Never one. People, especially rich ones, are always so darn stingy with their cash. I dunno. I just think that, as a group, they're more rare than Sasquatch.
I wonder where the term Sasquatch came from. . . ? According to my dictionary, it's Halkomelem. Very interesting.
Sorry. I got sidetracked.
I'm continually amused how much more important the political stuff in my joural seems to be to people.
Personally, I thought the omen was the most important part of the weekend.
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The political stuff affects most of us. The omens only affect you.
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