Two strong calls for public financing of elections from Buffalo, New York and Milwaukee, Wisconsin today. First, Rod Watson writes a commentary for the Buffalo News, for which he talked with Public Campaign's Rick Bielke, encouraging Western New York to follow the lead of Albuquerque, New Mexico in creating a full public financing option for municipal elections.Watson, citing the involvement of energy interests in the campaign money game, believes Albuquerque has the right idea:Voters in Albuquerque, N.M., will try it this fall. Residents there voted two years ago to amend the city charter to institute full public funding of elections. They decided to make politicians beholden to the public instead of to deeppocket campaign contributors.The cost to Albuquerque residents? About $1 per year, according to the advocacy group Public Campaign.The cost to Western New Yorkers of letting corporations, unions and the wealthy pay a candidate’s tab? Priceless.“When you look at the political payback some of these big contributors get . . . it’s not even close,” says Public Campaign’s Rick Bielke, comparing the cost of clean campaigns with the cost citizens pay when big donors buy politicians and wind up with sweetheart deals funded by taxpayers.  And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would seem to concur, in light of the most recent local campaign finance scandal involving the illegal funneling of contributions through family members by a contributor looking to improve his business prospects:Our system of campaign financing boils down to this: Politicians, mindful of the ever-increasing cost of elections, welcome supporters all the more likely to contribute money if they do business with government or want something from it. Sometimes that amounts to being left alone, being better understood or other times desiring something more tangibly beneficial.[...]The problem is this symbiosis. The solution: Remove the temptation to launder illegal contributions through family members to maximize influence, as is alleged here. That will require public financing of elections at both the state and congressional levels. It's unfortunate that it often takes a scandal to motivate change -- but scandal is certainly something we seem to have in spades both at the state and federal levels, and the call is going out to respond to blossoming corruption with robust change.