Professor Richard W. Painter, the chief ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush has an op-ed in the New York Times on the “conservative case for campaign finance reform.” He concludes:

“Taxation in the United States should be conditioned on every individual taxpayer’s being allowed to designate the first $200 of his or her taxes to support a political candidate. Such a “tax rebate for democracy” would bring billions of small donations to political candidates, who would no longer depend on a tiny sliver of the population for the money they need to get elected. Government contractors and other beneficiaries of wasteful spending would have less influence, and ordinary voters would have a fighting chance to make sure the rest of their tax dollars were spent conservatively and responsibly.

“This and other reforms, including greater transparency about who is paying for election ads, and a less activist Supreme Court that would allow Congress and state legislatures to address campaign finance, would go a long way toward restoring the republican form of government that our founders embedded in the Constitution.”