WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, today asked Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to hold a hearing on H.R. 6116, the Fair Elections Now Act.

The bill would cost taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion to subsidize congressional campaigns, and would be paid for using revenue from the sale of wireless “spectrum” to telecommunications firms.

“After spending almost a $1 trillion on a stimulus bill that delivered 9.6 percent unemployment, the Democratic Congress now wants to bail out poor congressional candidates. The problem is that H.R. 6116 takes money that belongs to the taxpayers and hands it over to candidates for the House, who don’t deserve it and shouldn’t get it,” Barton said in a statement. “We should be using these billions for public debt reduction, not for financing somebody’s political campaign. Part of running for Congress is convincing people to support you with their time, their talent and their money. Nobody running for anything should get taxpayers’ money because they can’t convince people to support them voluntarily.”

A copy of the letter can be found here.