Sunday, January 4, 2009

Should proposition donors be disclosed?

Before you answer this question, click on this Wall Street commentary. It seems as though public disclosure of individual donors to ballot initiatives creates an environment of harassment and intimidation regardless of the side you're on. The original intent may have been to prevent private campaign contributors from paying for benefits like Governors Richardson (NM) and Blagojevich (IL) are both accused of, but donors to propositions rarely get anything in return. Even so, why attack an individual donor of $100 whose individual donation may have hardly made a difference by itself? It's sad that people have lost jobs as a result of the pressure from a few angry people who didn't agree with their support for an idea. Sadder still is the disincentive of people who might not give financial support to support traditional values next election after seeing what happens to those who do. As the author of the article notes, this is not too far from publicly disclosing who and what a person votes for. As long as the government allows this to continue, our freedom will suffer.

1 comment:

Aaron said...

Dan,

Great article find. I actually have Lott's book "Freedomnomics." Go figure! : )