Ron Unz

Re your interview with Ron Unz (Opinion, May 30):

If we really want reform of big-money electoral politics, then we only need one initiative--an initiative to eliminate initiatives. Big-money interest groups buy the results with false advertising, slate mailers and disinformation campaigns.

Let’s dump the entire initiative system and hold our legislators to their duly elected task of writing the laws we are expected to live by. While we are at it, let’s spend some of the savings feeding the hungry or educating our children.

ALEXANDER S. POLSKY

Huntington Beach

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In his haste to “end money’s rule over state politics,” Unz is willing to restrict the inalienable right to free speech. Like most conservatives, Unz does not realize that the political process is a means to implement fundamental rights, not to determine them. Unz maintains his concrete-bound view despite Scott Holleran’s questioning, which draws a clear distinction between political means and basic principles.

PAT NICHOLSON

South Pasadena

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All that is really needed for true and effective campaign finance reform is to break the connection between giver and receiver by preventing the candidate or party from knowing who is giving to them or their cause. A simple law should be passed requiring that any campaign donations go straight into a “blind trust.”

Since the elected official would never know who did and didn’t give, it would forever change the landscape of lobbying, returning us to decision-making based on issues and facts. It would bring campaign spending back to reasonable levels; who would actually donate if he or she couldn’t brag about it? It would protect the 1st Amendment rights of those people who did give and allow them to give as much as they wanted.

LEE HAMOVITZ

Sherman Oaks