Daren Bakst recently spoke to the Judiciary I committee meeting about legislation to create a pilot test for taxpayer financing of legislative campaigns.  Daren argued that taxpayer financing in the legislative area would serve to only help incumbents because these systems equalize funding thereby making it harder for challengers to overcome the inherent benefits of being an incumbent, such as their name recognition. Furthermore, implementing a voluntary contribution system would fail, as evidenced by the judicial campaign system experiment that resulted in the use of General Fund monies to supplant low fund balances. During the Shell Oil/Congressional Quarterly summit focusing on offshore drilling, Daren suggested that the federal government repeal the across-the-board ban and allow states to decide if drilling should be allowed. Considering the House recently voted in favor of drilling, states that are hesitant to side with drilling should do so soon, before they lose out on the potential revenue source.