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Campaign Finance

In: Social Issues

Submitted By mbillyg
Words 1149
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(H)Seven billion. This is not referring to the number of people in the world or how far some galaxy cluster is away from Earth. It is the amount of money spent during the 2012 Presidential Campaign. Politicians consistently use unprecedented amounts of money during campaigns to ensure victory. According to the Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, “Election campaigns for public office are expensive. Candidates need funding for support staff, advertising, traveling, and public appearances. Unless they are independently wealthy, most must finance their campaigns with contributions from individuals and from businesses and other organizations.” The issue that arises is the matter of how this money is collected. Incumbent politicians have the biggest advantage in regards to campaign financing because of the connections they have already made. Super PAC’s, interest groups, corporations, and private individuals are the biggest contributors in campaign donations. Some people see these contributions and unlimited funds as unconstitutional and call for major reform in campaign finance laws.
Campaign Financing
Private campaign donors can provide unlimited amounts of funding; therefore, politicians often use these private donors in order to finance their massive campaigns. The most recent attempt at reform in the 2010 Supreme Court case of Citizen’s United vs. FEC instead served to worsen the problem. In “Non Profit Groups and Partisan Politics,” Christina Lyons explains how, (Q) “that ruling permitted unlimited spending on partisan political advertising by corporations, labor unions and individuals.” (CTA 1) When Lyons refers to organizations like “corporations, labor unions and individuals” she explains that they can now freely expend all the money they want in campaign ads, and those organizations can use this tactic to gain political favors. (CTA 2) This “unlimited spending” is also coupled with the ability to have the contributions remain anonymous to the public so average citizens are not aware of the corporations that are acquiring the most power in society. (AIA 1) If the government reforms the laws for campaign contributions, then more politicians will have the opportunity to be heard, and if more politicians can get their message out, then wealthy corporations and individuals can stop widening the gap between rich and poor.
Funding comes from many different angles during campaigns. Corporations, conglomerates, and organizations all give funding to candidates, but they are not the biggest funders. (TAM) In “Super Pacs and the Presidential Election,” Anthony J. Nownes logically reveals through statistical evidence that, contrary to popular belief, individuals provide more political contributions than any other form of donor. Nownes explains this when he states, (Q) “The media tend to focus on the money that comes from interest groups and their PACs, but these groups actually play a minor role in our elections relative to regular people like us.” (CTA 1) These corporations tend to be covered by the media more when donating to campaign because of their large public image, but it is the “regular people like us” that truly influence campaign funding the most. (CTA 2) While big businesses do greatly assist candidates in donations it is important “to reiterate: individuals are by far the most important sources of money for campaigns.” This makes it easy for wealthy individuals to impact the dynamics of a campaign to benefit themselves and people like them. (AIA) If politicians rely on private donors to provide funds to campaigns, then those politicians might exchange favors in order to gain funding, and subsequently allow the wealthier subset of the population to help themselves. (VP/TR) Although lawmakers establish regulations in regards to financing campaigns, wealthy private donors continue to find ways around the government to get their wealth to politicians.
Campaign Finance Loopholes: Campaign finance laws have loopholes that are exploited by candidates and private enterprises, and reforms are necessary to fix these loopholes; therefore, campaign finance laws need reform. Companies see elections as a business, so they do not necessarily back the candidate with the ideas that coincide with their financial goals. In “Democrats and citizens united: an unlikely embrace,” Andy Kroll uses an expert opinion to logically convey that these super PACs will back any candidate they see as having the best chance to win the campaign. (Q) “Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on joining Priorities USA Action super PAC, which turns into a pro-Hillary Clinton organization: ‘I think the numbers clearly show that she's the strongest presidential candidate on the Democratic side. And Priorities is going to be there for her if she decides to run’” Kroll quotes Jim Messina as he states that because Hillary Clinton is the (CTA 1) “strongest presidential candidate on the Democratic side,” then, (CTA 2) “Priorities is going to be there for her if she decides to run.” Messina is channeling his Pac’s money to the candidate that seems to have the best chance at winning the campaign. This is why many people blame corporate America for the issues that go on in government. These so called masters of the universe buy politicians into powerful positions only to advance their own goals. (AIA 1) If companies, private investors, and super Pac’s directed funding to candidates that have popular political beliefs, then ordinary citizen approval would increase. (AIA 2) As a result, there would be less disunity in regards to controversial topics that are put forth by the government. The government has commissioned some groups to attempt to regulate the money that flows into elections. The Federal Election Commission is tasked with regulating the financing that goes to candidates during campaigns, but the loopholes created in campaign finance laws makes it difficult for the FEC to always enforce the legislation. These loopholes allow private investors to provide anonymous funding at record-breaking levels. In the article “Election Campaign Financing” Shirelle Phelps and Jeffery Lehman create a logos appeal when referencing the 1996 and 2000 elections to explain the impact of these anonymous campaign donations from corporations and individuals. Phelps and Lehman allude to soft money, or money donated to a political party instead of directly to the candidate in order to bypass campaign finance limit laws, and analyze its impact when “U.S. corporations and unions provided unprecedented amounts of soft-money contributions during the 1996 and 2000 election cycles.” (CTA 1) This extraordinary amount of funding was further enabled by the FEC having “its budget cut, making the commission virtually helpless to prevent the parties from skirting existing campaign finance laws.” (CTA 2) These “unprecedented amounts of soft-money contributions” allowed corporations to gain a firm stronghold in election campaigns.

Conclusion: When I began my research on this topic, I assumed that most of the funding for campaigns came from companies and organizations, and I had no clue that wealthy individuals had the biggest sum of donations. While I still believe there should be reforms regarding the matter of campaign finance, I now know that this problem does not only take place on the massive scale of

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