You would expect Daren Bakst to utter the words in that headline. He’s an opponent of taxpayer-funded election campaign schemes.
But the person who actually offered that comment was public financing advocate Larry Lessig, during an interview this afternoon with Carolina Journal Radio. Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor and co-founder of the group Change Congress, is pushing a program for taxpayer funding that involves no “matching funds” or “rescue funds.”
Unfortunately for proponents of North Carolina’s existing taxpayer-financing system, this state does provide “matching funds” when a candidate who shuns tax dollars spends beyond a certain threshold figure for his campaign.
The Supreme Court’s recent order in an Arizona case prompted Bakst to urge state leaders to place a moratorium on North Carolina’s constitutionally suspect “matching funds” system. Lessig’s comments, which you can watch below, back up Bakst’s argument.
