The misnamed Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act is nothing more than a devious device to keep the Democratic and Republican parties in power forever. It blatantly destroys all third parties.

The act (H.R. 4694)

+ Caps the amount a major party candidate can spend, even challengers. But if challengers aren't free to spend more than incumbents, incumbents retain the unfair advantage of name recognition and other privileges of office.

+ Rewards parties based on their percentage of the vote in the previous two elections, so that the incumbent is usually rewarded with the most money and third parties are allocated a paltry amount.

+ Third party and independent candidates may get full funding if they get petition signatures equal to 20% of the last election's total number of votes, or partial funding if they get 10%. That means collecting tens of thousands of signatures, just to get funding.

+ Worse, signatures collected from paid signature collectors would not be valid. Paid signature collectors have been the lifeblood of third parties.

+ Creates a so-called Grassroots Good Citizenship Fund, complete with a massive propaganda campaign, with the unrealistic hope that people would voluntarily contribute to public financing of campaigns on their tax returns. If someone has strong positions on the war, abortion, or immigration, they probably would not let their money fund candidates who take the opposite view? This program will not raise enough money, while the major parties still get to gobble up the lion's share of the money that is raised.

+ Additional funding from state and national political party committees is capped at 5%, and no other source of funding is allowed, such as private contributions.

+ Independent expenditures are prohibited. All campaign activity must go through the candidate's campaign committee or the party. Individuals will not be free to use their own money to promote their own opinions about an election. In other words, H.R. 4694 attacks freedom of speech. And candidates who refuse to accept public financing of their campaigns out of principle are essentially barred from raising or spending any money at all.

H.R. 4694 does not let the people decide. It doesn't let the people spend their money or speak their minds on behalf of candidates and values they believe in. It favors incumbents (Democrats and Republicans) and crushes third party and independent opposition.

Campaign reform should encourage more openness, more competition, and more robust debate, not less. I hope that you, as representatives of the people of South Carolina, will not support this act which is self-serving to incumbents and denies citizens freedom of speech and the right to support candidates of their choice.