Arguments Against Campaign Finance Reform

The right of free speech granted to all citizens in the first amendment, the necessity of funding expensive political campaigns, and the fact that small donations make a candidate responsive to the needs of their constituents, all make any restrictions on campaign financing unneeded and onerous. Congress should strike down any bills attempting to reform this essential part of the U.S. election process. Any further restrictions on donations to political campaigns will prove detrimental to the United States functioning system of elections by limiting individuals’ freedom of speech, making our candidate’s campaigns underfunded and unresponsive to the needs of the American people.

I agree that, deep down, there is something wrong with the way in which campaigns in the United States are financed. There is little doubt that large corporations and/or special interest groups have a “quid pro quo” expectation attached to the outlay of large sums of money (an expectation of a direct exchange of campaign contributions for favorable government treatment).

These laws were the perfect way for the state to make sure that the system is stable in the future. Just recently on April 2nd, the Supreme Court of the United States turned down the overall cap on monetary political donations. This is a classic case of the state adopting policies to ensure the stability of the system. Coping the scheme of citizens united the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision allows an individual to donate as much money as they please to federal candidates in a two year election cycle. Although federal law bans direct contributions to campaigners by corporations and business, super pacs allow money to get to the politicians without direct contact. But this law still allows wealthy individuals to support the candidates that will represent their needs and wants in the national government. This creates an unfair system aimed at helping the elites because they will have more money to donate therefore will have more of the campaigners attention. Justice Breyer realized the importance of this decision being turned down and was recorded writing “Where enough money calls the tune,” he wrote, “the general public will not be heard.” (New York Times).

It is unsensible to believe that even the upper crest of the US financially can keep up with a corporation. Therefore receiving donations from corporations is the candidate's main goal, while ignoring the many small donors that truly represent America’s views. While there is no solid proof of corporations influencing candidates decisions thee have been sketchy moment in which corporations money influencing candidates decisions have been suspected. In 2000 when Bush was running for president an energy company based in Houston, Enron donated a substantial amount of money to Bush. They donated 2.5 million making them the highest donating energy company and the 36th highest corporate donator. After Bush was elected he passed 6 bills extremely beneficial for Enron that multiplied their revenue by nearly three times. In all Corporations donating limitless to candidates forces a candidate to pass bills beneficial for their donors and not the majority of people. This needs to stop or the purity of America’s political system goes down the

Campaign finance reform is a movement in the United States to help change the involvement of money in American political campaigns (Boundless, 2015). “ Throughout the history of campaign finance reform, three main areas have consistently been the target of regulation: contributions, expenditures, and advertising. Over the years Congress has instituted limits on how much individuals or organizations may contribute to federal campaign committees and political groups, how much campaign committees may spend during the course of an election, and how much money might be used for advertising expenses during a campaign” (Smith, 2010). To help limit contributions, expenditures, and advertising Congress has passed laws which are known as campaign finance

Efforts to regulate campaign finance, in particular, the Federal Election Campaign Act, have been based on mistaken assumptions about the role of money in politics and on the mistaken belief that eliminating or reducing money will in some way make the process more fair, the playing field more level. In fact, spending on political campaigns is hardly extravagant, amounting to only a few dollars per eligible voter every two years. Because there is no a priori correct allocation of political advantages, including money, efforts to control this one feature of the political landscape have tended to have serious detrimental side effects, including the entrenchment of incumbents and the stifling of new, alternative political choices. FECA and its

In American society, campaign finance reform is continuously a topic of discussion. This year’s 2016 election will be the most expensive campaign with presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton is running for office. By this coming November, campaign spending for all candidates spending for all candidates who ran in this year’s election will be an estimated total of 4.4 billion dollars (“Do We Really Need”). For campaign finance to experience reform, we must first acknowledge that the current system is broken. Campaign finance should be restricted and monitored, laws can create more incentive for candidates to disclose political spending. Disclosing Political spending helps voters make informed decisions at the ballot box, and fosters trust in the political process (“Do We Really Need”). States regulate campaign finance in three ways by disclosure and reporting requirements, setting contribution limits to candidate campaign, and by providing a method for public financing of elections. Candidates who run for Federal Office as President of the United States, Vice President, and Senator or House of Representatives have the responsibility to contact the Federal Election Commission to obtain forms and information regarding Federal Campaign requirements and filing deadlines (De Gruyter). States use public financing of elections is by providing means by which candidates can accept public funds to conduct their campaign. If a candidate takes into this program making

Since the 1970s and the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley vs. Valeo (1976), outside campaign expenditures have been allowed during election periods. These expenditures, however, were restricted to certain subject areas, such as issue advocacy, and had to disclose contributors (Jacobson, 1985). Since the early 2000s, the disclosure of corporate and private entities has decreased significantly, which is a concern since corporations and other entities can now spend unlimited funds on electioneering communications that attempt to sway electoral outcomes (Youn, 2011; Dowling and Miller, 2014; Briffault, 2012). Moreover, general exposure to these political

outside spending more than doubled from 2010 through 2014, to $486 million. In some competitive races, outside expenditures accounted for as much as two-thirds of the total. Small donors don't play a role: In most cases, fewer than 1% of all contributions are $200 or less. The average contributions are in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.” (Hiltzik) This is a clear example of what is happening in current political elections, the capacity for big money and corporations to chase their interests in the political field through money gives them a huge advantage in electing individuals who are predisposed towards their practices and beholden to them for helping them get elected. A representative government is supposed to be one that provides equal representation by all people and small groups. The current system ignores this and gives preference to small groups, but only a select

Campaign finance issues are complicated in the United States by the fact that the funding sources of the Republican and Democratic parties differ so sharply. As a result, any reforms intended to affect one kind of funding are likely to adversely and disproportionately affect one of the two parties. Furthermore, while most issues on which elected officials decide concern benefits for constituents. Campaign finance reform involves changing an institution that benefits those who make the legislative choices. Today this is an issue of popular debate, which there are many varying proposals and even more varying opinions.

Political campaign financing refers to all finances that have been raised and expended in order to promote political candidates, parties, and initiatives. According to a survey conducted in November 2018, when questioned “Do you know what political campaign financing is?” approximately 50% of respondents answered yes, 27% answered no and 23% answered that they had heard of it. The same survey relayed that only 4% of participants had positive views, 35% had negative views and the remaining 61% were unsure of their views on campaign financing. Yet when asked the question “Regarding the role of money in American political campaigns, what level of influence do you think money has?” 96% of respondents said too much,

Campaign races are expensive and the only way to fund them is with large amounts of money from corporations. Although corporations cannot contribute directly to candidates, they can contribute money to political action committees, or PACs. These PACs then can then donate and buy ads under the protection of free speech. If a candidate wants to receive this money, they have to make promises to the corporations, officially or otherwise. They then have a financial incentive to make certain decisions. If this is the case, they will not truly be making decisions for the people and instead for the corporations. Thus, the people are not being represented if the person is elected. Even if they do not want to, candidates are forced into pleasing corporate donors if they want to get reelected. Although the law states that companies cannot donate to campaigns, the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling allows companies to donate to PACs which are not allowed to coordinate with candidates. In theory this would protect the first amendment while not allowing direct donations, however this is poorly enforced and campaigns are still coordinated so the companies are still donating and having a large effect on elections. [The economist, 2014] One way to fix this would be to put a limit on all donations, including to PACs to ensure that politicians are following the will of the people and not the will of the rich or

The recently concluded national election cycle was defined by frenzied campaigning and feverish advertising blitzes that lasted for more than a year, as American citizens were once again charged with the enormous task of voting for their next leadership class. What began with our forefather's modest experiment in democratic governance, built upon a foundation of informed citizenry selecting candidates who best represented shared values on the relevant issues of the day, has since become slowly distorted by the pernicious influence of corporatized campaign funding. The American political apparatus has traditionally been the arena of the affluent, because "like almost every pursuit in this free-enterprise country, political campaigning is a business … and, as in many businesses, success often goes not to the entrepreneur who brings a product to market first but to the one who exploits it best" (McManus, 2010). While candidates on the local, state and federal level have always been beholden to major donors, modern elections were forever transformed from contests of relative merit to proverbial spending sprees after the notorious decision delivered by the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Campaign contributions destroy the marketplace by expelling the views of average citizens in exchange for the views of corporate donors that don’t have the opportunity to have their views scrutinized by the public. Their views are safe from criticism because they are able to shield their views through backdoor talks with candidates. According Samuel Issacharoff, a professor of Constitutional Law at the New York University of Law, in reference to political corruption, “the source of corruption was large expenditures capturing the marketplace of political ideas” (Issacharoff). The spread of ideas is essential to democracy and large donations to campaigns prevents ideas from average citizens from being considered. The corruption from large corporations needs to be regulated to allow for our democratic elections to be free and fair for everyone involved so that all suggestions can be heard.

Campaign spending can have a critical influence on legislative outcomes, even if it doesn’t actually have an outsize impact on election outcomes. As long as candidates believe that spending gets them re-elected, this spending will influence how they vote in legislative battles once in congress. Campaign finance is at the very heart of complaints about elections. Money and its potentially corrupting influence are at the very heart of complaints about politics in the United States, and every two years, many candidates promise voters that they’ll try to reform a system that they say has been broken by congressional inaction and the Supreme Court. At their core, democratic elections are a battle of personalities and ideas, and