Campaign Funding

Campaign Funding

By: Alex Reinke

The excessive funding in the campaigns has become an undeniable fact that plays a vital role in the result of an election. The problem is not necessarily in funding elections, it is how the process is gone about. The infamous dark money is where a large chunk of the money used for election influence comes from. The term dark money means money that is anonymous. Many issues arise because of dark money and how it works. I believe that any person has the right to support what they believe in with their money. This seems fundamental; however, many loopholes are exploited to allow for maximum monetary influence on an election.

Citizens United vs Federal Elections Committee was a Supreme Court case in 2010 that upheld corporations as a person. This means that, by law, I now believe that corporations have the right to support what they believe in with their money. As a land of the free, owner’s and CEO’s can do whatever they wish with their money. I can stand by using money for whatever they deem necessary. This power of corporations being a person is however being abused. Corporations are donating millions of dollars to PAC’s and SuperPAC’s, who in turn work (“not directly”) for a candidate and promote their campaign.

These PAC’s and SuperPAC’s (Political Action Committee’s) are also a broken piece of the U.S. campaign funding practices and laws. These organizations collect unlimited money and in turn the money goes into election support. Dark money plays a role coming into SuperPAC’s. Dark money allows for anonymous donation into influencing elections. A common way of abusing the rules the Federal Election Committee has set includes a 501c4 organization. These are tax free corporations that commonly support elections with 49% of their income. They can keep their donors secret. This allows for corporations to put their name in influencing elections anonymously.

I propose that a limit be set upon how much money can be spent on election influence. This would allow for the most supported candidate whose ideas resonate with the people to hold office. Different supporters of Obama spent over $700,000,000 dollars on his elections and almost doubled Romney’s supporters. I am not saying this is what won him the election, but patterns present that nearly 9/10 elections are won by candidates who spend the most money. The proposition of setting a spending limit on different ads and other campaigning procedures would solve at least some of the problems presented in the current state of campaign funding. The process needs change. There are too many loopholes as of right now. This could be the first step.

Sources:

Board, Editorial. “The IRS gives up on fighting 'dark money'.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 Feb. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-irs-throws-in-the-towel-on-dark-mone....

“2012 Presidential Race.” OpenSecrets.org, www.opensecrets.org/pres12/.