So what information

should we, as voters, be entitled to? Here's a list. (1) We should have

a full recital of a candidate's formal education, including degrees, institutions,

dates and places. (2) We should have a description of a candidate's work

experience, with employer names, dates, titles and responsibilities. (3)

We should be informed of any criminal record the candidate may have, with

arrest places and dates, charges, and disposition. That includes DUIs

and traffic offenses. (4) We should have a candidate's history of litigation

involving lawsuits where he may have been charged with fraud, theft, mismanagement,

tax underpayment, and of course bankruptcy and even sexual harassment.

Why should

we want this information? Because, quite simply, it is relevant. Looking

at our local Fayette County government, for instance, we're hiring commissioners

who handle a budget of $65 million of our tax dollars, and Board of Education

members who handle about $125 million. Do we want to entrust the management

of our tax money to a person who could manage his own money so poorly

he ended up in bankruptcy? Or to a person who consistently disrespects

the law?

We, the voters,

are the boss. Like an 800-pound gorilla, we can do anything we want, and

elect anybody we want. It helps keep the candidates humble. Elect a wrestler

as governor, for instance, and see if that doesn't catch the professional

politicos' attention. But we are not gorillas, for we're supposedly intelligent.

We need the kind of information an intelligent employer would want before

hiring an employee.

Is there some

information we don't want? Yes. Religion is the first item that comes

to mind. Both our federal and our Georgia constitutions state that religion

cannot be a consideration in government employment. Yet we have many candidates

who seek to exploit religion by trumpeting their affiliation, usually

with mainline "majority" religions in their area. To hear them

talk, they're all Sunday school teachers. A few years ago I encountered

a candidate who, in his election materials, boasted of being a member

of a particular church. After the election, a very active long-time member

of that church, who knew everybody in it, told me that the candidate (who

was elected) had never even been seen at that church.

I shouldn't

have to say that race is also an irrelevant consideration, and we know

the real motives of many who would show a picture of themselves next to

a picture of their opponent. Another suspect bit of information is place

of birth. In Fayette County, where there was no hospital until about five

years ago, you couldn't possibly truthfully claim to have been born in

Fayette County unless you were born at home (in a log cabin, I suppose).

Reports of

campaign contributors and contribution amounts are available at the county

Board of Elections office, but we don't seem to have anybody go look this

up and disseminate the information. Why the newspapers don't do it is

beyond me. American history teaches us that newspapers used to play an

important part in the political life of the country, but apathy now seems

to rule there too. To know who supports the candidates, and to what extent,

is of obvious importance. The average voter can't be expected to trek

to Board of Elections offices to look this up: that information is there

for the news media to look up and analyze for the benefit of the voters.

They should do their job.

Under the current

system, information that is unfairly prejudicial (religion, race) or largely

unneeded (like children) is substituted for substantive basic information

like education and work experience. Reforming the financing of election

campaigns will not solve the problem at all. We need a Voters' Bill of

Rights that provides for disclosure and dissemination of basic information

on the candidates. Just imagine the difference it would make if, well

before going to the polls, we were all provided a booklet for each position

to be voted on, showing, side by side, the name and relevant background

of each candidate. The current system is designed to make it hard to make

comparisons, as each candidate generally avoids even mentioning his opponents'

names, deviously hoping to make it in through name recognition brought

on through saturation advertising.

An election

should not be a people-fooling exercise. We should take the deviousness

and hypocrisy out of the current system, and bring on the hard facts that

can enable the voters to make meaningful comparisons between the candidates.

Before they

issue a new insurance policy that might commit them to paying out large

sums of money, insurance companies get "inspection reports"

from commercial services whose business it is to collect information on

the people who want insurance. If you want automobile insurance, the insurance

company wants to know what kind of driving record you have. If you want

a million dollars of life insurance, the insurance company wants to know

something of your lifestyle. That sounds reasonable. Why shouldn't the

public do the same with political candidates who apply for a public office

and might likewise commit the taxpayers to paying out large sums of money?

I have long

thought that the first step to campaign reform was to give the politicians

no money, which would prevent our landscapes from being despoiled with

yard signs and billboards, our newspapers, mailboxes and windshields cluttered

with meaningless "vote for me" ads, and our airwaves polluted

who specialize in people manipulation, the candidates withhold the information

we need and use the money to feed us information we don't need. Large

corporations, who are also amoral (because, in the words of 18th century

British jurist Sir William Blackstone, they have neither a body to be

kicked nor a soul to be damned), throw away tons of money to facilitate

the misinformation that currently characterizes political campaigns.

We, the voters,

need respect. We need relevant information. And we won't achieve that

unless we insist upon and get a Voters' Bill of Rights. Let's see if we

will ever find candidates who will offer us what we truly need.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayetteville

[email protected]