Making contributions anonymous

[Reed Davis <rd100@delphi.com>]

> Reed, you suggest that voters contribute to specific
> elections, but not specific candidates.
>
> There is a proposal by a Yale U. law professor to have people
> contribute anonymously to elections. People vote
> anonymously--why not contribute anonymously?

That sounds like another very viable proposal.  It might be
an easier political sell than my proposal since people could
continue to contribute to the candidate of their choice.
However, we would have to ensure that each contribution was
truly anonymous and that the donor could not somehow make the
candidate aware of it.  This would be especially important
since public disclosure of the contribution would no longer be
possible.  With either proposal, it would be very interesting
to see how much private funding decreased.  A good portion of
any lost contributions would likely have been intended to buy
some form of influence.  For that reason, we are almost surely
better off without such contributions.

Reed Davis