Campaigns Funding

Jorge García Teruel Treviño

Sociedad y Política de Estados Unidos

03/04/2014

Supreme Court ruling gives small number of wealthy donors new ways to drive campaigns

By Matea Gold, Published: April 2

-The Washington Post

The Supreme Court has struck down aggregate limits, which means there are no more rules on how much money an individual can spend in one campaign cycle. What will happen is that campaigns will be more influenced by the elite. Even small contributors can now inject big sums of money to any candidate, party committee or PACs. Political parties will get a huge financial infusion and candidates will raise more money. It is, in short, the freedom to very rich donors to max out their contribution in campaigns. The court declared unconstitutional a total limit on how much money an individual can give federal candidates and parties in a two-year cycle.

The article includes the opinion of experts, attorneys and politicians. It has been a controversial matter because some think it will turn the representative system into “a sandbox for millionaires and billionaires” -Wertheimer, some think it is “actually democratic because it allows people to express themselves” –Engle, Spies says that there is a “limited universe of donors” and Randlett, like Spies, says that there won’t be “much more money in the system (than before)“ For these two, things will remain the same way. However Nathaniel Persily said what I think should be taken to account: “The decision should be celebrated by all of us who worry about the polarizing effect of money on politics… A world in which individuals can give limited amounts of disclosed money to a lot of politicians is certainly preferable…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-ruling-gives-small-number-of-wealthy-donors-new-ways-to-drive-campaigns/2014/04/02/b1ab041a-ba8a-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html

I disagree with the Supreme Court ruling because it probably favors the interests of the wealthiest donors. Campaign finance should have rules and those rules should be strict to prevent the influence of wealthy minorities and corruption. With the adequate regulation governors would work in the best interest of society as a whole. The powerful and wealthy people already finance American politicians and the problem will become deeper without the aggregate limits. These limits make that more people are able to contribute in the same manner as those who are richer so that everyone gets the same share of attention from the political party or candidate.

If a politician is looking for money he should get it from a lot of people and not from one very rich person because that way the candidate becomes like his employee and they should support the cause of all the citizens and not the interests of the people who financed the campaign which would be probably the case if there is only a few major contributors. It is certain that it can have its benefits since they will have more resources to spend than before but is the money that well spent or it goes to someone pocket? The Supreme Court is probably working for the interest of the Supreme Court itself and not for the interest of the U.S. citizens.

In conclusion the Supreme Court is going the opposite way, they should regulate campaign financing even more. While funding in campaigns is already huge, making it bigger is probably not going to cause a huge impact in the wellness of campaigns themselves and it will probably just end up being a better deal for political parties, candidates and PACs, they are the only ones that will be receiving more money, the question here is if they will do their jobs as they are ought to or will they follow the orders of their sponsors?