Fitzsimon File

Sometime early Friday evening the final budget agreement will be released to the public and read into the record in the empty House and Senate chambers. Lawmakers will vote on the budget Saturday and Monday with the goal of adjourning the session Thursday of next week.

Not too many new details about the budget were released during the day Friday, but lawmakers were busy in committees and on the House and Senate floors. (Look for budget news and analysis later this evening and this weekend on the Progressive Pulse).

In one of the most important votes of the session, the House gave tentative approval to a public financing pilot program for election to three Council of State posts in 2008, the Commissioner of Insurance, the State Auditor, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The system would be similar to the public financing program now in place for the Appellate Judges. Candidates who volunteer for the public financing program would have to collect 700 small contributions to qualify and agree to limit their campaign spending. They would receive state money to run their campaigns, the amount determined by how much has been spent in previous elections.

Candidates could choose not to participate and continue to accept contributions from private donors. When they raised more money than the publicly financed candidate received, the state would match the money raised by the privately-funded candidate up to a certain level.

The passed the House by a single vote with House Speaker Joe Hackney breaking a tie. The bill’s supporters said it was a good solid step forward toward reducing the role of money in the political system, money that often comes with strings, especially in Council of State races, where many contributors represent interests regulated by the Council of State official. 

The opponents made all sorts of claims, that public financing was a waste of money, that taxpayers should not have to pay for campaigns of people they don’t support and most puzzling of all, that the fact that so few people currently contribute big money to campaigns shows that people don’t want their money going to politicians.

Maybe it is because most people in the state can’t give $4,000 or $8,000 to a candidate. Both the other objections are off base too. The public wants fair elections where access to wealth doesn’t determine the winner or decide if someone can even run.

The taxpayers have a big stake in making sure that special interests don’t buy access to public officials elected to represent everybody in the state, not just their donors. 

The opponents of the plan must not be too upset that wealthy contributors have such a significant impact on elections and state policy because they offered no plan of their own to clean up the political process.

Good for the House for taking the taking the next step toward removing the corrosive influence of special interest money from elections

 

Even Senator David Hoyle has agreed to support the budget deal reached this week by House and Senate leaders, but he is still complaining about it, primarily upset by the local option real estate transfer tax, and still warning his fellow Democrats that they may pay a political price for it.

The Insider quoted Hoyle saying he found the budget deal “distasteful.” "I think they (House Democrats) have grossly underestimated the political damage, the demagoguery,” Hoyle said.

Hard to think anyone underestimates the demagoguery possible by the Realtors and Homebuilders after their display in the last few months. Hoyle seems almost obsessed with possible political damage, which means he is either unwilling to vote for something because it is the right thing to and then explain it to voters during a campaign, or he actually agrees with the Realtors and is trying to scare his colleagues with claims about their political future.

Either way, Hoyle and the Realtors did not get their way this session, and people across the state will have the chance to vote on how their county pays for schools and other infrastructure needs.

 

Governor Mike Easley has signed the mental health parity bill into law and said in a statement that it ends a form of discrimination in health coverage. The passage of the parity law is an historic event, but discrimination against some people with mental illness and people suffering with chemical dependency continues.

Now it’s time to take on the Blue Cross lobbyists and help people with substance abuse problems and mental illnesses left out of this year’s legislation.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.