Proponents of campaign finance reform have long
insisted that their goal was to end the corrupting influence of “too much money
in politics.” The heart of their argument is that democracy is subverted when
wealthy individuals or Fortune 500 corporations are able to use campaign
contributions to exempt themselves from public policies that threaten their own
interests.
Trouble is,
giving elected officials the power to regulate how their campaigns are funded
makes no more sense than putting the proverbial wolf in charge of the hen
house. Doing so turns campaign finance laws and regulations into little more
than incumbent protection tools. At the most basic level, putting a $1,000
ceiling on individual contributions to incumbents and challengers seriously
handicaps the latter by magnifying the advantages of incumbency. Those
advantages include, among much else, huge tax-paid staff, office and
communications resources that hardly any challenger can match….To Read More…..
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