Today's politics are so skewed in favor of big-dollar donors like casinos, HMO's, credit-card companies and the corporate porn industry, that the average citizen has virtually no say in government. These special interests are all about buying influence.

We see this network of bribery, fraud and money-laundering going on at all levels of politics — including our own Legislature here in Utah. It is time to remove the foxes from the henhouses and return democracy to the people. The best way to do this is to have 100 percent publicly-financed elections. Only politicians who want to betray the public trust and those who want to buy those politicians would be opposed.

Robert Hildebrand

Salt Lake City