Fritz Hollings and RenaRF are right about the problem of never-ending campaign fundraising, but wrong about the solution. A constitutional amendment takes a 2/3 vote of both Houses of Congress AND must pass in 38 state legislatures. Going this route is like beating your head against the wall. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment, RIP c. 1985?
There's a better way:
Clean Money Public Financing
It's already working in Arizona and Maine since 2002 and has already SOLVED the problem of endless campaign fundraising! WITHOUT amending the U.S. Constitution, which is not gonna happen!
How it works: Public financed candidates get matching funds to match the money raised by Big Money opponents. Big Money opponents don't want to help the Clean Money candidates, so the Big Money guys don't spend their Big Money! Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and more than half the legislature were elected with Clean Money!
So NOW THEY NO LONGER SPEND HALF THEIR TIME FUNDRAISING, and can tell the BIG MONEY BOYS to GO TO HELL!
Arizona voters passed their Clean Money law with a ballot initiative in 1998. Maine passed it through the legislature.
It's passed in Connecticut and California is next -- it just passed the State Assembly in January, it goes to the State Senate next and will be on the ballot in November. Help make it happen, at www.CAclean.org !
Nationally, if we pass it in California, it creates momentum and news media attention needed to pass it in Congress in 2007 with SIMPLE MAJORITIES in both Houses, plus the new President's signature in 2009, and it's DONE!
We don't need a 15-year struggle to pass a constitutional amendment that saps our energy and leads nowhere, a la the ERA campaign, 1970-1985!!
To help the national Clean Money/Public Financing campaign, go to www.publiccampaign.org