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The Pros And Cons Of Campaign Finance

1215 Words5 Pages

David Frendlich
Overview
Campaign Finance has been a key issue for candidates and voters in recent elections, with more attention going towards the source of campaign funding. The “Super PAC” is a product of the 2010 Supreme Court Decision: Citizens United v. FEC. The court case focused on dealing with corporate entities as independent citizens with free speech rights. The 5-4 ruling held that freedom of speech prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by nonprofits, corporations, unions, and others. With “Super PAC”, money being a make or break in the candidate’s performance in achieving national attention, and in turn, votes in elections. U.S. Elections are among the most expensive in the world, …show more content…

This is the suggested action for the legislature to take. In the following policy brief, small donor matching will be analyzed for its’ faults and strengths, and will be compared to the other policy …show more content…

There are positives with the current system of campaign finance. Contribution limits and mandatory financial disclosures have made the electoral process more open and widely accessible than in the past. Current campaign finance law gives the states the right to choose how to enforce campaign finance laws. The states decide the “imposition of disclosure and reporting requirements, setting contribution limits to candidate’s campaigns, and a method for public financing of elections.” However, there is no baseline standard for states to follow. Meaning that states could (and do) become safe havens for dark money and unlimited influence of big donors. There are political activities that are not limited or regulated by current campaign finance laws like soft money and independent expenditures, which are essentially loopholes for wealthy donors who want to spend more than the regulated amount. Public opinion is against the current finance system. In a New York Times Poll about Citizens United, “More than four in five Americans say money plays too great a role in political campaigns… while two-thirds say that the wealthy have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other

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FEC determined that there would no longer be limitations on independent expenditures by corporations, so the Court of Appeals ruled that since corporations are able to spend freely and independently, the government “can have no legitimate anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions made for the purpose of funding such expenditures” (Chalmers, 60). Therefore, the contribution limits placed on organizations and political committees were ruled unconstitutional. iii. Effects The Citizen’s United case had quite an influence on the court’s ruling, as they wrote that the “arguments before Citizens United, …plainly have no merit after Citizens United….Contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption” (Murse).

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