Will the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and the imprisonment of several Alaska state legislators in connection with Veco Corporation bribery scandal boost the number of voters who support the Clean Elections initiative on the ballot in Alaska this month? The author of this letter to the editor of the Fairbanks News-Miner thinks a full public financing program for state elections would help put these scandals in the past.

From Kaarle Strailey:

Thanks to the good work of the FBI, we have a cleaner set of politicians in office these days. But unless proactive steps are taken, it won’t last long.

With the huge amount of multinational corporate money sloshing around our state, the opportunities and temptations for graft will continue to be enormous.

The Clean Elections movement offers a simple and practical means to rein in the problem of a system that has been corrupted to reward those who raise the most money: Get big money out of the equation through publicly financed campaigns.

Remember Alaskans, your chance to vote for Clean Elections is coming up fast -- August 26th. Mark those calendars.