The Hartford Courant offers this report, which begins: “Congress’ leading reformers on Tuesday proposed a dramatic revamping of the presidential campaign financing system that would allow taxpayers to contribute $10, instead of the current $3, to help publicly fund White House bids.” It appears that Sen. McCain has not joined his former allies of Sen. Feingold and Reps. Shays and Meehan in sponsoring this bill. This is no surprise.
The chances for the bill’s passage don’t look very good in the Senate, as this Roll Call report ($) makes clear. Sen. Lott, for example, called the idea behind public financing a “dinosaur.” A summary of the bill appears in this press release from Sen. Feingold.