Dan Carpenter promises to save us from too much democracy

Not a big surprise to see Dan Carpenter retract his vote in favor of public financing of elections (“Carpenter changes mind on ‘democracy vouchers’ for campaign finance,” Mar. 24), one of his only decent votes on the San Luis Obispo City Council.

Here’s what The Atlantic wrote after Seattle approved a democracy voucher program last year: “As with other public-financing systems, the aim of the voucher initiative is to force candidates to interact directly with ordinary voters and liberate them from the burden of having to spend half their days ‘dialing for dollars’ or catering to the wealthy donor class at fancy fundraisers.”

To pay for that major political improvement, Seattle homeowners will see their property taxes go up by all of $8 per year on a $400,000 home. SLO would just move some money around in the general fund.

Oh, the fiscal horror!

But here comes Councilman Carpenter, promising to save us from too much democracy when the democracy voucher program comes back to the City Council.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 8:40 PM with the headline "Dan Carpenter promises to save us from too much democracy."