Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are joining forces to push for better public financing of congressional campaigns. The Fair Elections Now Act (still looking for text of the bill) would make an unprecedented amount of funds available to candidates who meet certain “minimal” qualifications for public support.

The problem with this bill is that it appears to be biased against third party and independent candidates, requiring them to meeting higher standards of “public support” than major parties. For instance, in Illinois a major party candidate would have raise $5 donations from 11,000 people before qualifying, but a third party cadidate would have to raise the same from 16,500 people. No justification for this descrimination is offered, probably because there isn’t one beyond self-interest.

I’m not ideologically opposed to public financing for political campaigns, but they are far from an ideal solution to political competition problem. And if we’re going to have public contributions to campaigns, it is imperative the rules apply the same to ALL candidates, no matter what party or whether they even have a party.

Public financing though doesn’t address the real problem, which is lack of competitive races and lack of alternative voices. In fact, this seems more like a way for the major parties to compensate for the loss of soft money after McCain-Feingold. Soft money is usually used to help little-known candidates challenge well-known incumbents. Now it appears they’ll have public funds to do so.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not necessarily good either.