Saturday, December 6, 2014

Campaign Finance Reform

I agree with Zach in saying that after reading "Big Sky, Big Money" change is needed to the campaign finance reform, and that the best proposal is a constitutional amendment.  Super PACs, PACs, and wealthy individual all remain to dominate the campaign finance by donating millions of dollars to campaigns.  This impacts voters because they have to acknowledge that their vote is not only going to the candidate they support, but all of the interest groups and individuals who sponsored that candidate.  In some cases these sponsors have different views than the candidate too, which further complicates the voting process.  Many voters have come to this realization, and "eighty-three percent of Americans believe there should be at least some limits on the contributions corporations and unions can make."  There have been many proposed resolutions to this problem, such as a system called "Protect Our Democracy" which is associated with small donations, a voucher system, and a constitutional amendment.  Protect Our Democracy is used in New York, and states that a New Yorker would gladly pay $2 to get their Democracy back.  This system would eliminate the influence of PACs and wealthy individuals, which would make our Democracy become more fair.  The negative aspect of this system is that many Americans do not have a lot of money to hand over to politics.  The next possible solution is a voucher system with a public matching system for congressional elections.  But political figures argue that "we will never get reform until we attempt something that's cross-partisan."  The last solution, and the best solution, is the constitutional amendment.  A constitutional amendment is the fastest and strongest solution that is proposed.  Although this amendment has to go through both two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states, it is the most secure way to reform campaign finance.  After turning the finance "leak" into a "flood" a sturdy amendment is the only solution left for campaign finance.  Overall, I believe we need a campaign finance reform, and a constitution amendment is the most appropriate way to achieve this goal.    



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