U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Maryland Democrat John Sarbanes, have announced they will introduce a bill for public funding for congressional candidates on February 5, Wednesday (today). Here is some information about the bill. The bill will be HR 20. The bill has such a low number because U.S. House rules permit the Minority Leader to introduce a bill of her choice at any time during the congressional session, and that bill number is reserved for her. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. When the text of the bill is available, this post will be updated.
Okay, seems interesting. But with Pelosi being one of the people behind this, and given the text of the current intro on it, I can’t help but think the final bill will somehow exclude minor/third parties. Or at least try to, because doing so is probably unconstitutional (I remember reading about a few bills and laws with similar restrictions that were ruled unconstitutional).
I am confident the bill will not discriminate against any candidate based on the candidate’s partisan affiliation or independent status. Recent public funding bills in Congress have all been good on that variable. That is because, with independents having been elected to Congress recently from Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut, it just wouldn’t make sense to discriminate against independents. Also Pelosi once co-sponsored the bill to outlaw restrictive ballot access laws, when Congressman John Conyers was the sponsor. She did that in 1989, the year that bill had 40 co-sponsors.
Ah, that’s good. I just wish this bill would have been brought up some time earlier. It would have been a tremendous help to campaigns like Paula Bradshaw’s (I live in the IL-12th Congressional district) this year.
Which robot party hack gerrymander MONSTER gets HR 1 or HR 1776 ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.