Campaign Finance Reform

After viewing the documentary, “Big Sky, Big Money”, I do believe that campaign finance reform is necessary. Though money and political success may not always be directly correlating, money certainly does have a significant effect on campaigning. The reason candidates run campaigns is to make their name and their platforms known to as many people as possible. Therefore, the more campaigning one does, the more people will know about that person and the greater his or her chances will be to win the election. Campaigns cost large amounts of money so being able to control and monitor the finances is very important. Without any type of finance reforms, there would be much more corruption in our government. Political races would be influenced by a wealthy minority and would defeat the entire purpose of a democracy. The flaws in campaign finance reform can be partially solved by attracting small donors as mentioned in the article. The legislation proposed by John Sarbanes could very possibly help rid the system of corruption. Providing every voter with money to support their candidate of choice would be a much better representation of what the American people actually want. It would take the power from the corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals and place it back into the hands of the common voter; where it belongs in a democracy. The idea of attracting smaller donations in larger numbers would help restore the democracy by preventing a minority rule. Corruption is inevitable and people are always going to find loopholes no matter how many reforms are put into action, but that does not mean that the system should be completely without limitations. The campaign finance reforms our government has in place today may seem flawed and ineffective, but they are still necessary and once they are improved there will be less corruption in the government and more representation of the majority.