Our view: 'Clean money' elections sound good, but details are too messy.

It would likely help our country -- and it would certainly help voters' faith in our elected leaders -- if we found a smart and fair way to lessen the role campaign donations play in politics. But Proposition 89, the "clean money" initiative, is not that way. Voters should vote no on Prop. 89.

It's not that money isn't debasing our politics and our politicians. Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's scandalous greed was exceptional, but pay-to-play politics and nonstop fundraising are the norm in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. The ridiculously high cost of running for office and the millions dropped on the metastasizing annual crop of statewide initiatives have convinced many Californians that something, anything, must be done to break the symbiotic bond between our elected leaders and the wealthy donors upon whom they depend.

Along comes Prop. 89, which promises to clean up campaign finances via a system for publicly financing political campaigns. Similar systems are in place in Arizona and Maine.

Candidates could choose to either raise private donations or accept public financing, but not both. Those candidates who took public financing would have to secure enough signatures and $5 donations to qualify. Assembly candidates could get $400,000, Senate candidates $800,000 and gubernatorial candidates $15 million.

Donation limits would be lowered for people, political parties and advocacy groups. Publicly financed candidates could also tap into additional streams of cash if opposed by wealthy opponents or a high-paid, independent hit job.

But the devil's in the details. All of the $200 million to fund the publicly financed campaigns would come from an income-tax hike on corporations and financial institutions. In contrast, in the other states using a version of the "clean money" system, Maine pays for its publicly financed campaigns out of its general fund and Arizona foots the bill through a state surcharge on civil and criminal fines.

Prop. 89 would also impose a $10,000 ceiling on how much corporations could spend for or against a ballot measure. But nonprofit corporations are exempted from this limit.

In California, that exemption would spare politically powerful groups like the California Nurses Union, which not coincidentally put this measure on the ballot. Marketed as a way to "clean up" elections, this measure is actually a means for one special interest to tilt the scales in its favor.

Like so many other statewide initiatives this year and every year, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act has a name and an ideal that will appeal to many voters. But like just as many other ballot measures, it's even worse than what our dysfunctional Legislature could come up with if it really tried.

Vote no on Prop. 89.