ENGLISH
FOR
CONGRESS POSITION PAPER (Revised January 2012)
Much
has been said about the need to reduce the undue and corrupting
influence of money in the candidate selection and election
process. Primary elections were thought to be an
alternative to the smoke-filled rooms employed by party
elites to select their candidates for the general
elections. However, the process of having two elections,
the primary election and the general election, has made the
electoral process for national office an expensive and fatiguing
marathon for candidates which is almost two years in
duration. Before a public funding scheme for elections can
be adopted, established national primary election dates for
all states should be mandated and set beginning two months in
non-presidential election years and six months in presidential
election years before November for all partisan candidates in
primary elections. This would shorten the electioneering
period between the primary and general elections and eliminate
the undue influence on candidate selection by small states that
deliberately set their primary election dates over ten months
before the general election in November.
Congress should require all television and radio stations to
provide at least one-half hour of free programming from 8:30
p.m. to 9 p.m. during the five-day workweek (holidays exempted)
for candidates beginning three months before the primary
election date as a condition of their FCC license
renewal. The Federal Election Commission would
supervise and manage the process to insure that all candidates
received equal TV and radio coverage. Likewise, all
newspapers would be required to provide at least one page of
free space for candidates on the entire second page of their
first sections during the same period. Tax credits
for the print media would offset the loss of revenue from the
free space provided to the candidates. There would be no
compensation for the television and radio stations because the
free broadcast time for candidates would be partial compensation
for their use of the public's airwaves. All stations would
be required to provide the same amount of free time at the same
time of day, so no station would gain a competitive advantage
over any other station during the candidate broadcast periods.
In exchange for the free broadcast time, all candidates would
have to agree to forego the use of any additional free or paid
broadcast advertisements or personal media appearances.
The same restriction would apply for free print media coverage.
(Please read the Congressional
Term Limits Issue paper).
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Designed by Imad-ad-Dean,
Inc.