Kendra S. Horn: “Mr. Chairman, to say this is public financing is not really accurate. Sure, money is involved in postage. This is the…”

“Mr. Chairman, to say this is public financing is not really accurate. Sure, money is involved in postage. This is the postal administration that has several billion, I believe, in profits now. They deliver these at both the nonprofit rate and the higher rate. It does not really make any cost change in adding people to the route they run. It simply gives now what is given to State parties to the candidates. The original Shays-Meehan bill and McCain-Feingold reform plans had a proposal like this in them. Now, they probably took it out for some reason. But I cannot imagine except incumbents would not like this because that would give their challenger a chance. I think we ought to get a little broader and not just be protecting incumbency, we ought to let the challengers have the same type of opportunity we have; because, let us face it, incumbents generally, unless you are running against a millionaire, can have a lot in their bank accounts. I do not happen to. So do hundreds of others in here. But a few of our Members, as we know, have million-dollar campaign funds, and that scares off the competition. This would at least give the competition a chance to get the message out twice, to the households in the district at the nonprofit rate.”