It is easy to deplore the way that candidates for Parliament and other political offices in Iran can be vetoed by powerful but unelected guardians of the revolution. If the members of the “Council of Guardians” disapprove of a candidate, he or she cannot appear on the ballot. This aspect of the elections in Iran has received quite a bit of coverage in the United States.

     The actual system in Iran is quite a bit more complicated than our media usually portray it. The Supreme Leader of Iran is elected by an “Assembly of Experts”, which consists of 86 “virtuous and learned clerics.” These clerics, in turn, are elected by universal suffrage from a list of screened and approved candidates.

     The Supreme Leader appoints six members of the clergy as part of the twelve members of the “Council of Guardians.” The other six members of the Council of Guardians are lawyers who are recommended by the head of the Judiciary, but actually appointed by Parliament. The head of the Judiciary is also appointed by the Supreme Leader. The six clergymen (yes, they are all men) and six jurists on the Council of Guardians are able to veto candidates for Parliament, and candidates for other political offices including the Assembly of Experts.

     As I said, it is easy to deplore the system in Iran, because it systematically excludes any candidate who is not acceptable to the unelected members of the Council of Guardians. I consider it to be a flawed system and a candidate for reform.

     Most Americans have a blind spot for the parallel systems at work in our own election system. Like Iran, America also has an institutionalized system for weeding out candidates who are not acceptable to powerful but unelected interests in our society.

     Our system for vetoing candidates begins with campaign financing. Each candidate is required to pay for his or her own campaign. If a candidate cannot pay for a campaign directly out of pocket, she or he must solicit donations from individual or institutional sources. A candidate who fails to raise large amounts of money is effectively cut off from access to the mass media. Under our existing system of campaign financing, such candidates are almost guaranteed to lose.

     Less than one percent of Americans give money to candidates for political office. Those individuals who do contribute tend to be very wealthy, and to have economic interests that they expect their candidates to support. Corporations with vested interests in government policies also make a large chunk of the campaign donations. Overwhelmingly, those two types of wealthy donors only contribute to candidates who fall within a narrow portion of the political spectrum.

     The other part of our system for vetoing candidates is the mass media, which is also owned and controlled by very wealthy individuals. They can and do refuse to give significant coverage to a candidate who fails to raise large contributions from corporations and wealthy individuals.

     This system of vetoing candidates is extremely effective. Before you ever show up at the voting booth, many unacceptable candidates have been excluded from the ballot by the high cost of mounting a campaign.

     Just like in Iran, Americans are presented with a limited set of choices at the ballot box. Sure, an occasional candidate who does not conform to the political orthodoxy of the wealthy can survive the veto process, but that can happen in Iran also. Some extreme examples of this veto process can be found in the many races in Alaska where there is only one candidate on the ballot. People tend to not even run for office if they know that the system is stacked against them.

     The net effect is that no matter which candidate wins, he or she will support the political orthodoxy that is acceptable to the unelected “guardians” of our political system. Like the system in Iran, our own election system is a candidate for reform.

     There is a relatively easy fix for this problem. Instead of letting wealthy campaign donors veto candidates, we could go to a system of public financing of campaigns. Other jurisdictions in the U.S. have successfully implemented this idea. Candidates could compete for popular support on an even playing field with equal resources. The candidates could be judged by their political proposals rather than their acceptability to wealthy donors.

     We could get rid of the unelected Mullahs and Ayatollahs in our midst who are vetoing our candidates, and let the people decide for themselves whether they like a candidate.

     That is my candidate for reform. I hope you will support it.

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