1. Were there areas of agreement or what you might call "common ground?"

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• Denise Hood
  Again, due to the fact that I have gotten hopelessly behind, and at this point have no way to catch up, I was only able to read everyone's comments on Choice 3, rather than contributing much to the dialogue myself. But from what I read, the contributors seemed to share less consensus about this Choice than the other 2. There seemed to be less common ground. Choice 3 seemed to be a more polarizing issue, depending on a person's frame of reference, that they brought with them into this discussion. Basically, there are 3 different schools of thought on the debate about Campaign Finance Reform that emerged most forcefully with Choice 3. The first involves the idea that campaign financing, whether from hard or soft money sources, falls within the scope of "Free Speech," and as such, should NOT be subject to regulation. These same people expressed ideas like: 1. Money = property, and people should have the right to control their property; 2. Regulations stifle competiton and free enterprise; 3. Applying market principles allows for more choice; 4. Any attempts at regulation are NOT enforceable anyway, and only lead to more bureaucracy; 5. Competition = individual freedom. The second school of thought, which I personally feel very depressed about, would be best summed up as, "What's the use? It's hopeless!" Nothing can be done about it anyway, so we should just resign ourselves, and back away. Just let it happen, because we are powerless to stop it. The corruption spawned by money and power and influence has ALWAYS been around. It is ALWAYS going to be around. End of story. The third school of thought was expressed by those who have emerged from this discussion (myself included in this group) expressing the belief that money does NOT and SHOULD not equal Free Speech, and therefore SHOULD be subject to control/reform.People with this view, also seemed to favor a bolder, more direct and hands-on approach to campaign finance reform than would be brought about by a combination of full disclosure without regulation. They seemed to believe that money equals influence, and ultimately leads to corruption, and favored limiting or eliminating soft money, and even went as far as suggesting that we should put limits on soft money, as well. This group seems to favor a combination of public funding/free air time (Choice 1). This group does NOT seem to feel that limiting "Free Speech," in this case is necessarily a BAD thing, because it will ultimately result in a win-win situation for everyone, and a more representative form of government will emerge, as a result of the additional regulations/bureaucracy that would be it's inevitable by-product. Some other themes present in the discussion of Choice 3 were: 1. concern that regulation would MOST hurt 3rd parties, and help to perpetuate the 2 party system; 2. Full disclosure without regulation is meaningless. What do we DO with the information? Who would be in charge of gathering and publishing and disseminating this info? How would voters USE this info in deciding who to vote for? WHat MEANING to assign to the info? How to give access to ALL voters? Using libraries' and schools' computer terminals? Burdening newspapers with printing this info? Do people really have the time and the interest to digest this info? Would this information, in and of itself CHANGE anything?

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• Joan Johnson
  There seemed to be quite a bit of support for disclosing the donors to candidates and parties.

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• Jay Oliver
  None that I detected.

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• Ruth Reilly
  1. Making campaign donation information available to the public is good. 2. The vast majority of the public are too busy trying to make ends meet to bother reading it, and if they did, they probably would not understand its implications. Conclusion: This is a benign but ineffective choice.

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• Nancy Thomas
  I think we concluded that this choice was the least acceptable or helpful. Disclosure alone, without some regulation, would not change much. How prompt would be "prompt disclosure"? How effective is disclosure? Would media put a "spin" or bias on it to further a liberal or conservative view? I can just hear the "sound bite" negative campaign ads already!

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2. What have you learned from your fellow participants, and how has it changed or informed the way that you think about this choice?

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  I have been intrigued with the discussion on ways to use technology to keep our legislators closer to their consituents

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• Denise Hood
  I guess the discussion of Choice 3 forced me to focus on the problem of reconciling the 2 opposing viewpoints, mentioned above. Those who see campaign financing as belonging within the sphere of protected "Free Speech," are appalled and resentful of any CFR efforts that would result in limiting what they view as their First Amendment Rights to Free Speech. Those who favor bold intervention, such as requiring full disclosure, and limiting or eliminating BOTH hard and soft money, replacing it with some combination of public financing/free or reduced cost air-time, see the argument that money equals free speech as little more than helping to rationalize and perpetuate a system that has both corrupted our elected officials, and bankrupted our confidence in them. How do we reconcile these 2 points of view? Can we find any common ground? Or is Campaign Finance Reform doomed from the outset, because there can be no compromise, and no consensus between these 2 points of view? I didn't think about this problem before I entered into this discussion. It has made me much more aware of the "other" point of view, although I can offer no solution to the problem.

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• Joan Johnson
  I initially felt full disclosure would most likely net very little. I now believe that it would have some impact. Years ago charitable organizations had to disclose how much of the contributions went for overhead. Many people thought that would alter how some organizations would get their funds. Well, it did. Corporations got behind some of the charities that paid quite a bit to their employees who ran the charity. What disclosure did was identify the more opportunistic ones whose actual charitable donations were rather small after they took their "overhead costs". The same thing might happen with campaign money disclosure. Keeping the list of donors available is good. Also talk about limiting the campaign total expenditures seems reasonable to me also. Use the disclosure in conjunction with other avenues we have discussed and I believe we will be on the right track toward candidates having to deal with the consequences of large campaign donations.

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• Jay Oliver
  I was surprised to see so little discussion concerning Choice 3, but I suspect that all of us are beginning to suffer a bit of fatigue concerning the entire subject.

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• Ruth Reilly
  I have learned that many have thought about this more deeply than I have. After reading their comments, this seems like a good idea that will not solve the problem but should be implemented anyway.

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• Nancy Thomas
  I didn't think this was a viable choice from the beginning and the discussion just confirmed my own viewpoint. I do think there needs to be disclosure, but I don't think it is THE solution that would really reform campaign finance.

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