OK, if the problem is that Congressmen spend 5+ hours a day begging, schmoozing, and influence peddling, and then can’t actually do their, y’know, duty as legislators; how’s this for a solution?
I’m gonna start a SuperPAC. I’m going to collect donations from around the country until I have a few million I can spend as I see fit.
Then I’m going to go to my Congressman’s office with this offer. I will cut him a check for, let’s say, $900,000 shortly before the next election, on these two conditions:
He goes cold turkey on fundraising from the time of the offer until the time I pay him. He cannot accept nor solicit any donations until, say, June of the next election year. The time he gains can be used being an informed and responsible Congressman who can run again on his record. If he makes it that far, he gets $900,000. If not, he gets nothing. There is no pro rata for partial compliance.
He will have working in his office an agent of my PAC, paid by my PAC, whose job is make sure that he complies with condition 1. He will give the PAC’s agent full access to his schedule and integrate this person into his staff. The agent will not make any demands about how he votes, but will report back to my PAC if the Congressman violates condition 1, at which point the $900,000 would be forfeit.
This still gives the Congressman time to fundraise for the next general election, and almost a million extra.
I’m not making any demands about how he votes (and if you know my Congressman, know that I don’t like him or agree with him). I am simply offering him money on the condition that he focus on his constitutional duty until the next election season. He can spend that time actually familiarizing himself with the bills he’s expected to vote on.
The whole idea would be illegal from the get-go. Super PACs cannot contribute funds to candidates. They can do electioneering for candidates (buy ads, recruit volunteers, anything) but they cannot coordinate their activities in any way with the candidate’s actual campaign.
ETA: coordinate in any way is probably an overstatement. If a candidate gave an interview to a newspaper reporter and said, “I’m going to run my campaign on the issue of puppy adoption!” and then the Super PAC started running ads on puppy adoption, that would be legal. They just can’t coordinate in a face-to-face or private way.
How do you decide which candidates get public funds? It takes a relatively minor effort to get on the ballot, so if you start passing out free money to all candidates, you’re going to see an awful lot of candidates. If you don’t fund all candidates, then you’re back to the system we have today.
I can’t see how that’s the case. You just put some threshold amounts in there.
For example (not saying this is ideal, just giving a for-instance):
Fully qualifying candidates for Congress get $75,000 for their campaign.
Fully qualifying candidates are those that either win the nomination of a party that got at least 20% of the vote in an election in that Congressional district, that state, or in the nation as a whole, in the past 5 years, or who have themselves won >20% of the vote in a Congressional or statewide or national election during that time.
Non-qualifying candidates are those who didn’t clear 5% by any of those standards in the past 5 years. They get bupkis.
Partially qualifying candidates are those who cleared the 5% threshold, but not the 20% threshold, during that time. They get $5,000 for each percentage point they or their party exceeded 5% in their best outing during that time.