1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Corruption has seeped into all parts of our democracy and if we do not root it out, our republic will fall. I believe eradicating corrupting influence in political campaigns is this first step. Corporations and billionaires have an outsized ability to king-make and then hold chosen politicians under their thumb. Elected representatives should be beholden ONLY to their constituents and not special interest, billionaires, corporations, foreign elites, or political agents. I propose that ALL individual political donations be outlawed. Instead a system where anyone who meets certain fair and accessible criteria (i.e., age requirement, residency/citizenship requirement, and obtaining a requisite amount of signatures, etc.) can be a candidate. Pools of public funds would be established and those pools would be EVENLY distributed to all qualified candidates for specific elections. A pool would consist of tax-payer funds and general public donations only. Each candidate could only use these publicly supplied funds for their campaign, and would be under penalty of imprisonment if they use or accept any other funds. No pro-bono or in-kind services would be allowed unless that same service was provided equally to ALL candidates. Volunteers could be utilized but not to provide commercial or skilled services (i.e., legal representation, market analysis, etc.). Incumbents would be held to these same rules and any currently held funds from before this law is enacted could either be returned to the individual donors or if desired by the individual donor, placed into the public pool of funds to be spread between all candidates The political-industrial complex will hate this proposal because it will be bad for their business even as it is good for democracy, but the point is to remove the corrupting influence of money and privilege. Creating a truly even political playing field funded by THE PEOPLE is the only way to stem the tide of corrupting influence poisoning our democracy.