[quote=IForget]I think it’s time for complete public financing of national elections and state-wide elections.
Shortly, I think, under the above system, all candidates would forgo private financing as there would be no benefit to it and only downside. We could crush the special interests by essentially making their money irrelevant to a candidate’s election/re-election. This would also have the side benefit of making fundraising irrelevant and thus politicians could focus on legislating/governing as opposed to fundraising all the time.[/quote]
Idealistic, because what you are proposing would be a shift to predominantly more ethical, honest and transparent “Politicians”. Oxymoronic….
But, I do agree with the approach to drive public officials towards being public servants (not hacks beholden to special interest which is 99.9 % of what we have now).
Also, on the strong mayor form of government. The thing I don’t like is adding another member to overcome deadlock votes (need an odd number, not and event number). The same can be accomplished by eliminating a position to achieve an odd number. Government needs to become smaller, not larger.