Campaign Finance Reform

After reading the article "What's the Future for Campaign Finance Reform" and watching the "Big Sky, Big Money" documentary I think hat campaign finance reform is absolutely necessary to prevent the immense amount of corruption that invades our political campaigns today. A major supporting detail from the document that stuck out to me was that the Judge Paul Newby had $2.5 million dollars from outside groups while his opponent has $200,000. This statistic blows my mind. In what world is that fair? Apparently the one we live in today. Clearly there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Also, that is only one example. There are so many other problems like the use of major corporations, independently wealthy people, and unions. They can all easily find a way to donate any amount using 501(c)(4)s and super PACs. With all of this money from outside groups, candidates will be voting and focusing on issues that these small groups want, verses hat the majority of people might want to focus on. A constitutional amendment would ideally be the best choice to fix the problem but currently I feel like getting one passed and agreeing on a perfect law unrealistic. Lessig’s idea of the voucher system with the government giving citizens refundable tax credits to donate to candidates is a really good idea. I think that this is a more reasonable approach that will not only help fix the problem at hand but also encourage more political involvement and hopefully result in people thinking the political campaign process is less corrupt, leading to higher political efficacy and involvement. Another possibility is that candidates may not need to rely on money from outside groups then, they will get a lot of money just from ordinary people. That would allow for them to focus on the wants and needs of “the broader population, rather than small wealthy groups”. This plan also allows people maybe who don’t have much extra money to contribute to have a voce. Money equals speech. This plan is giving everyone speech.