Proposition 89 seeks to clean up politics in California by providing public funds to people seeking office in the state government. Will 2006 be the year we finally figure out how to nip corruption in the bud?

(+) People in positions of political power have the opportunity to enact or enforce rules and regulations that affect the operation of businesses and the daily lives of private citizens. People that either want the government out of their way, or wish to receive some form of favorable treatment have motivation to get like-minded people into such positions. This means that politicians that share the outlook of the rich and prosperous have greater access to funds for political campaigns. Notice all the advertisements addressing issues of poverty and homelessness? Of course you don’t; poor people can’t pay for political ads.

(-) The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that contributing money to political campaigns is a form of speech, protected by the first amendment to the constitution. This isn’t anything new, but has been reaffirmed as recently as July of this year. In California, an individual can make a donation of up to $22,300.00 to the campaign of somebody running for governor. That means that if I can afford to contribute $500.00 to my favored gubernatorial candidate and you can afford the maximum $22,300.00 donation, you effectively have almost 45 times as much freedom of speech as I do. Hurray, democracy! A simplistic view of the position of the US Supreme Court on this topic implies that Proposition 89 will not stand up to a serious court challenge.

(+) No crackpots. To receive public funding, candidates will need to get a set number of people to make token contributions ($5.00 each) to qualify the candidate. This money goes directly to the state, not the candidate, and assures that if the candidate is a total whackjob, at least he’s a whackjob with a following. It takes 750 contributors to qualify for funding for a State Assembly run, up to 25,000 contributors to qualify for funding for a Gubernatorial run.

(-) Redheaded stepchildren. If you represent a minor party or are running as an independent, you can only receive half as much as a major party candidate running for the same position. This strikes me as a blatant bid to keep well-intentioned Greens and Libertarians from getting a toehold in the state government.

(+) Smaller numbers. As I mentioned before, individuals can currently contribute $22,300.00 to a gubernatorial campaign. Under Prop 89, that would be reduced to only $1,000.00. That sounds like a big reduction, but ask yourself if you could afford to spend $1,000.00 out-of-pocket with nothing to show for it but the possibility of a particular schmuck at the helm? If you have that kind of cash laying around, good for you. It’s a nice problem to have.

(+) Limits to independent expenditure committees. A classic problem with any kind of reform, whatever the subject of those reforms may be, is that when people are highly motivated to do something, they’re going to find a way to do it. When individual contributions to campaigns were limited, big donors found a workaround: independent expenditure committees (often referred to as PAC. Have $500,000.00 you’d like to give your gubernatorial candidate, but some mean old campaign finance law says you can only give him $22,300.00? Don’t worry, just spend the other $477,700.00 on an “unaffiliated” committee that just happens to run attack ads against your candidate’s opponents! Prop 89 seeks to limit contributions to these independent committees as well.