Campaign Finance: The Importance Of Money In Politics

From the very first elections held in the United States, there has always been a strong link between money and politics. During the first elections in the late 1700’s you had to be a white male landowner over the age of 21 in order to vote, meaning that you had to have money in order to have your vote counted. It seems today that we cannot go a day with out seeing campaign finance in the media, whether or not it is through advertisements for politicians in the media or asked to donate money to help let your favorite candidate win. Because campaign finance has always been on the back burner of political issues, there has hardly been any change to the large influence money has over the election process and politicians. While money has it’s

Campaign Finance reform has been a topic of interest throughout the history of the United States Government, especially in the more recent decades. There are arguments on both sides of the issue. Proponents of campaign finance limits argue that wealthy donors and corporations hold too much power in elections and as a result they can corrupt campaigns. Those who favor less regulation argue that campaign donations are a form of free speech. One case in particular, Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission has altered everything with pertaining to Campaign Finance.

Regulating soft money has been difficult because of constitutional issues that protect First Amendment rights, and Congress’ rights over regulating political parties must be focused on preventing fraud or corruption (Mason, 1997). Soft money is used to mobilize campaigns by using the money to support voter registration drives, and other similar activities designed to jump start a candidates’ campaign (Brennan Center, 2000). For this reason, soft money is important to an election campaign, and recently the amount of soft money raised for campaigns has skyrocketed. It has become a concern because it is largely unregulated and can be used to gain an unfair

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.

‘Despite several attempts to regulate campaign finance, money increasingly dominates the U.S. Electoral process and is the main factor contributing to a candidates success’ Discuss (30 marks)

In the 2016 election cycle, over 1.4 billion dollars was given to presidential candidates (Federal Election Commission 2016a). This is more than any other presidential election cycle in history (Price 2016). Another billion dollars was given to U.S. House of Representatives candidates, and about 600 million dollars was given to U.S. Senate candidates (Federal Election Commission 2016b). The majority of this money went to funding the candidates’ campaigns. This money controlled whose ads voter’s saw on television and which candidates were able to afford to travel the country campaigning for votes. In many cases, the candidate with the most money available won their election. Most campaigns are financed in large part by a small number

The Supreme Court also sited in that same ruling that, “In a free society by our Constitution, it is not the government, but the people-individually as citizens and candidates and collectively as associations and political committees-who must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on public issues in a political campaign” (Keena 6). While it may be a violation of freedom of speech to limit television ads, many of today’s candidates have made a mockery of the existing legislature regarding campaign financing. Ex-president Bill Clinton bent the rules and laws more than possibly any elected official ever, and certainly farther than anyone since Richard Nixon. Thad Cochran, a veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, stated, “Clinton used his own party and had it operated out of the campaign office, which was the White House, to coordinate expenditures by the Democratic Party and his election campaign in an unlimited amount, using soft money to pay for the ads, with his own chief-of-staff making the decisions about the kind of advertising, and Clinton himself was involved in writing some of the ads that were actually run by the Democratic Party using soft money” (Williams 10). No elected official had ever gone so far as to run soft money ads out of his own office, let alone rewrite the ads himself. It is cases such as this one that are prime examples for why there is such a need for new laws to govern campaign financing.

With the upcoming presidential election, it has been interesting to learn about things as they are actually happening in our country today. Among the many issues that surround the race to the office, financing the presidential election seems to be a major topic that is always in the public eye.      There are many different views on how the election should be financed but it is hard to tell how far government funding and donations can go before democracy is left behind.

majority plays only a small role in it. A few would argue that placing a limit on how

Candidates such as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are surrounded by money. This will allow for easy unlimited funding from the citizens who agree with their views and will benefit from them winning. Presidents would obviously reward these organizations once elected in one way or another. This will allow wealthy individuals to make a much more significant impact on elections. While old PACs had a cap on how much could be donated by individuals, while prohibiting organizations and companies from donating, these new “isolates” super PACs can receive unlimited donations. A major company may decide to spend a few million dollars to support a specific candidate if it could return profit on the investment from taxation policies the winning candidate puts in place. This puts a large importance on money in the election, and less on debates and views. This is shown in the current election, with two of the candidates being some of the biggest financial influencers in the United States. Donald Trump is one of the faces of the business world and has huge influences in the business world. Hillary Clinton was a former first lady and has many large backings. This election has two of the biggest iconic faces in this country, most likely due to this new

In a country built from unparalleled equality, our election system is not inclusive of the less affluent candidates. Inevitably, monetary funding has become a centralized focus point for American politics and has provided a reckless entry way for candidates not prepared for the presidency. Taking this current election for example, Hillary Clinton, democratic presidential candidate, received a donation of 25.6 million dollars from the Hedge-Fund, this being only a small fraction of her over all funding. Contrastingly, Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate, has only received 3.2 million dollars in total funding for her campaign. The difference is striking. Providing a

While public outcry has produced groups such as the Tea Party, who claim to favor nontraditional politics, it’s important to note that wealth is an important factor in campaigning. A person of modest income will find it more difficult to run for office than a person of a wealthy background. A person with wealth, by nature, runs in the same groups with his or her income level, and therefore has more access to raising money than a person who is not from a higher income level. A person who is not wealthy would have to do more fundraising, and acquire either larger contributions or small contributions from a greater number of people.

The idea of money in politics has always been a polarizing issue. For over one hundred years the discussion of individuals and corporations financing campaigns has led to a debate of corruption versus free speech. Is money in politics a corrupting influence that always leads to quid pro quo? Or, is it an issue of allowing individuals to use their money as an extension of their freedom of speech? Recently, campaign finance reform has been a very dynamic issue. With the last major supreme court case Citizens United v. FEC, money in politics has taken a significant turn from the status quo. With only seven years after the Citizens United ruling we can already see the effects of less regulated free speech in politics.

Money in politics in the most important issue to me at this moment. Especially with the presidential run of 2016. Many of the candidates are taking money legally from big corporations, Wall Street and rich billionaires who put money in their camping. They are not doing it to help the people they do it because they like having the power to rig the system to their advantage. No matter what party the representative is they still have to please their donors who controls. That is why young people are tired of the establishment. Tired of candidate coming off fake. Tired of being told promises that are broken because they decided to turn to their donors instead. The young Turks creator and owner Cenk Uygur who is the anchor of the channel created

rate so high. Because the party is much more likely to spend the soft money in places