Is Money Speech Essay

The First Amendment has been one of the most controversial issues surrounding the Constitutions since its ratification in 1787. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Many people disagree on the extent of power the First Amendment actually has on the right to free speech. One of the most controversial issues surrounding the First Amendment is how much influence a company can have over elections and

Does money control today's society? The Younger family is an African American family in Chicago in the 1950s. The family lives in a small and ratty one window apartment. They are an “average” family who receives the proceeds from a $10,000 life insurance policy from the death of Walter Lee Sr. Everyone in the family has their own idea of what they want to do with the money, if it was up to one of them. The author's story setting is in the apartment surrounded by various conflicts, conversations and actions of the characters. The story line is only a couple of days, but in that time the author is able to show how poverty can have a negative effect on the Younger family.

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.

In this Supreme Court 5-4 decision, the Court states that the First Amendment protects corporate and union funding of independent political broadcasts in elections. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.” Or as the Court says, the

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.

The demons of a misinterpreted judicial review have corrupted the legislature, the courts, and our political process. In 2010, the Supreme Court struck down the McCain-Feingold Act as unconstitutional. The landmark Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission decision ruled that political spending is a form of free speech and corporations have license to contribute exorbitant amounts to politicians. Citizens United ensures denies the voices of citizens as representatives are beholden to outside interests rather than their constituency. I, Justice John B. Gibson, hold that the power of judicial review is too widely interpreted and, to keep government officials accountable, must be vested in the masses to rediscover some twinge of our once budding representative democracy.

The controversy surrounding political lobbying does not question the act of influencing public officials, but rather the ethics relating to how these public officials are influenced. It is important to distinguish the fine line between bribery and lobbying. It is illegal to bribe a public official in the United States. This would mean that an individual could not provide compensation to a public official for them to behave, or vote, in a specific manner. Lobbyists may donate money to a specific candidate’s political campaign, but they may only do so when there is no expectation that the public official will behave in a favorable way toward the lobbyist or their clients (Mackinder). Lobbyists may bring public officials, their immediate families, and staff on trips or out to dinner. While it is illegal for a lobbyist representing a corporate client from directly bringing, it is not illegal for foreign governments to sponsor for these said trips (Goldmacher). What has begun to happen is lobbyists representing corporate clients may bring public officials on these trips, if the trip is sponsored by a foreign government. The Senate Office of Public Records reported that $3.23 billion was spent on lobbying in 2013, with 12,300 registered lobbyists. Professor James Thurber, who teaches at American University, has studied congressional lobbying for over 30 years, and does not believe these figures are accurate. He believes

Golden discusses many different problems of the legislative branch. One of the first things he talks about is the four defects, and the three effects of the defects. He refers to this as the 4-3. The first defect he talks about is the money flood. This is arguably one of the biggest defects of the legislature. While the three other defects only affect the House of Representatives or the Senate, the money flood affects all 535 members (Golden 2015). Most of the money raised by these members is paid by special interests groups, and all the money they receive is legal. In 2012 the money the House and Senate raised was more than $1.8 billion, and special interest groups accounted for $400 million of that (Golden 2015). This is scary because it means that politicians have to spend more of their time negotiating with small amounts of people who are able to give large sums of money, rather than most of the American public who can only afford to donate small amounts of money. This is alarming because it implicates them

The main constitutional question within the case of Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 regarded whether sections of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act infringed upon the free speech clause granted to the people through the First Amendment. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) instituted in 2002 controlled how political campaigns could be financed. The act criminalized ads produced by corporations that expressly advocate for or against candidates within sixty days of general elections and thirty days of primary elections. A claim was made that in preventing funding of political campaigning by certain corporations, the government was essentially preventing them from demonstrating free political speech and breaching

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.

Wayne, Lasser, Miller and others tend to agree that lobbyists and PACs have a great amount of influence over congress members because they may have direct connections and give campaign contributions. Recently, the airlines industry convinced congress to pass a $15 billion aid package it needs in order to survive. “The airlines had plenty of resources to draw on: 27 in-houses lobbyists, augmented by lobbyists from 42 Washington firms, including former White House aides and transportation secretaries, as well as the airlines own chief executives and corporate board members, whom all are well known in the halls of congress”(Wayne, NYT, 10/01/01. Lasser, American Politics, 1999. Miller, The American Prospect, 10/23/00. Geiger, Washington Post, 11/4-10/91.)

Paul Keating’s speech ‘funeral service of the unknown Australian soldier’ and Noel Pearson’s speech ‘an Australian history for us all’ have developed and expressed ideas using language appropriate to their audience, purpose and form. Despite the fact, it is fundamentally the speaker’s skills in the construction of the speech that determine its decisive success.

American government corruption is no doubt on the rise and big businesses love to take advantage of that. Many companies will look to ‘pay off’ or support a politician in their election in order to get their vote in the passing of bills or other things that may benefit their company and gain power over the government. For example, Tom Cobett, the “fracking-friendly former pennsylvania governor,” as called by Jon Schwarz from The Intercept, accepted around $1.7 million from oil and natural gas companies and he proceeded to pass or support several issues that helped those companies.

An assumption of representation is elected representatives are agents who express district preferences in legislative activities. Voters have preferences, but do not know which candidate in the election best align with these preferences; therefore, campaign communication and advertisements are important avenues that help highlight congruency of preferences between a candidate’s and voter’s positions (Krupnikov, 2011). This new electoral environment after Citizens United now has more independent campaign expenditures going toward election communications on behalf of candidates than in previous elections (Federal Election Commission, 2015). This new environment involves three primary entities for outside independent expenditures, Super PACs, traditional Political Action Committees, and political parties.

In my opinion the other models are not as beneficial in this particular case. The “Good Citizen” model wouldn’t be beneficial because the staff vision does not desire to do a good job or express they cannot complete proper data entry doe to constraint.