Just saw a mention of John Kerry ending 2004 with money in the bank ($10M is the figure cited), which reminds me again of how furious I was with that incredible, inexplicable, indefensible act then and how angry I am about it now.

Here in Oregon we’ve got pols of both parties who similarly convert campaign contributions to their own use, dipping into campaign funds when they aren’t running for anything, using campaign money for office perks, travel, hotels, etc. We’ve got folks who raise money and then decide not to run, folks who decide to run for different offices, folks who don’t even have opponents who raise money and then spend it all on themselves. What we’ve got, in essence, is lawmakers who brazenly and openly convert money given to one entity (a campaign committee) to themselves, and yet don’t go to jail for it.

This has got to stop.

It’s time for us, the small contributors that the pols insist are so important, to rise up and say enough is enough.

Join me in taking this pledge: with every contribution I give, I am going to extract a promise from the candidate that they will either spend every penny ON THE PRESENT ELECTION or refund it, pro-rata, to their contributors.

So if I give $100 to a candidate who raises $5M and finishes with $250k in the bank (5%), then I want $5 back (5%). If they don’t want to make that promise, then they can live without my contribution. I’m not donating any more money to be spent on anything other than getting my preferred folks elected, NOW.

I’ve been contributing monthly to two campaigns, one presidential and one for the Oregon Senate race; I’m going to write this idea up and send it to both campaign treasuries and ask that they agree to it or inform me, so I can discontinue my contributions. I hope you will join me — let’s start a give and give generously but wisely campaign. Here’s the wording I’ve come up with:

Condition Accompanying Campaign Contribution

By accepting this offer of a campaign contribution from _______ (donor) in the amount of $________, the ____________ (candidate name) campaign agrees that it will be spent only to help __________________ (candidate name) win election to ______________ (office) in ______ (year). The campaign further agrees that, within 30 days after the primary/election, it will return any remaining campaign fund balance to its donors by returning to each donor the percentage of their total contributions by which the total campaign contributions exceeded total pre-election expenses (including those committed to before but paid after the election). The campaign further agrees to decline this contribution in its entirety if it is unwilling to accept this condition, and by accepting this contribution, the named candidate agrees to be contractually bound to the promise to return any unspent contributions and to pay any legal costs and attorney fees needed to enforce this promise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.