The campaign finance system has come under attack by both parties. It may be the only issue Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders all agree on. In the past few years, several existing campaign finance restrictions have been struck down by the Supreme Court, opening the floodgates for nearly-unlimited political expenditures: just 158 families now provide half of all the political campaign money in the country.

H.R. 20, the Government by the People Act introduced by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD3), is a leading Democratic congressional proposal to level the playing field. The bill would give every citizen a voucher worth up to $50 through a “My Voice Tax Credit” for campaign contributions in $5 increments, and it would aim to make small donations as influential as large donations by matching any donation on a six-to-one level through the establish of a Freedom From Influence Fund.

What supporters say

“We know that if the role of money in our elections were reduced and the level of civility in our politics increased, the result would be the election of more women, more minorities, more young people and more people dedicated to serving the public interest, not special interests,” Sarbanes and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wrote. “Most members of Congress would leap at the chance to fund their campaigns without having to turn to a familiar cast of big donors and entrenched interests. Today, that’s virtually impossible.”

The vast majority of Democrats have come on board, with 157 Democratic cosponsors out of the 188 Democrats in the House. One Republican has cosponsored: Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC3). “I am greatly troubled by the undue influence that fat cat lobbyists and special interests have” over federal policy, Jones said. “Now, more than ever, secretive special interest money plays an enormous role in our electoral process and in governing.”

What opponents say

Most Republicans have celebrated the recent Supreme Court deregulation decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC as victories for First Amendment free speech rights. They contend this bill would amount to government funding of private speech, plus that it would contribute to levels of unsustainable government spending. (Democrats claim that the My Voice Tax Credit would not increase the deficit; see below.)

The bill therefore faces stiff opposition from the Republicans, pretty much every other congressional Republican besides Walter Jones. For comparison, a 2010 bill to re-implement most of the provisions struck down by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC only received two House Republican yes votes and was filibustered by Senate Republicans. And that was in 2010 — House Republicans on average have only moved further to the right since then.

Outlook

A companion bill in the Senate introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) has essentially the same components though a different title: S. 1538, the Fair Elections Now Act. With 23 cosponsors, none of whom are Republicans, the Senate version makes the House bill look bipartisan by comparison. Durbin claimed in a press release announcing the legislation that even though the bill would create a new source of spending, it wouldn’t increase the deficit, raising the revenue to offset it by instituting a .05% fee on annual federal contracts over $10 million.

Sarbanes’s bill didn’t even come up for a vote after it was introduced last Congress, just as yet to come up for a vote this time around.