Campaign Finance Reform: The Shifting and Ambiguous Line Between Where Money Talks and Speech is Free

By Brynne VanHettinga

Do you hate the fact that corporations have too much influence over the legislative process, but love the First Amendment and want to protect it, too?  In today's climate of corrupt politics alongside real threats to free speech, it seems that anything we do to address  one problem will make the other problem even worse.

Big money controlling our political agenda is a huge problem. Yet attempts to regulate it have often implicated constitutionally protected rights to freedom of speech. This book analyzes the arguments on both sides, recognizes the legitimate claims of each, and proposes possible solutions.

 

The influence of money in politics has been a problem for over a century. This book provides a brief historical account of campaign finance reform efforts beginning with the 1925 Federal Corrupt Practices Act. It then describes the tensions between alternating Congressional Acts and U.S. Supreme Court rulings to deal with the problem of money in politics. A critical analysis of the fallacies of the Citizens United decision also acknowledges that there are real issues with the infringement of political speech. Proposed solutions avoid (or make more transparent) corporate influence on the legislative process without running afoul of the First Amendment.

A great complement to civics education classes and programs, and a thought-provoking read for legal and policy wonks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brynne VanHettinga
• Release date: Jun 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732285613

Book preview

Campaign Finance Reform

The Shifting and Ambiguous Line Between Where Money Talks and Speech is Free

Brynne VanHettinga, J.D., M.P.A., Ph.D.

Copyright © 2018 by Brynne VanHettinga

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All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

ISBN:  978-1-7322856-1-3 

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Educational and non-profit organizations seeking multiple copies may contact the author for discounted pricing.

For more by this author visit https://www.books4thinkers.com

Other Books by this Author:

Full Length Books

The Great Jobs Deception: Why More Workforce Education Will Not Solve the Problem of Inadequate Jobs  (2018)

Why Assholes Rule the World (2019)

Good People, Evil Society: A Philosophical and Moral Inquiry (2021)

EBooks

The REAL History of Labor Day and the War on American Workers

Survival in the Gig Economy  or get it Free by visiting www.books4thinkers.com

Acknowledgements

One picture is truly worth a thousand words, and my thanks to these editorial cartoon artists, whose talent for telling it like it is in one picture has made this serious subject more fun and interesting: 

Russel Russmo Cox

Brian Duffy

Clay Jones

Dan Wasserman

The late Larry Wright

and the friendly folks at Cagle Cartoons.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The History of Campaign Finance Reform

Early Attempts to Prevent Political Corruption

The Federal Election Campaign Act

Strict Scrutiny and Compelling Government Interests.

Major Acts of Congress &  Supreme Court Decisions

The Buckley v. Valeo Decision and its Aftermath

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and the McConnell Challenge

The Citizens United Decision

Decades of Precedent Overruled

How Corporate Speech is Different

Disclosure Requirements

Why Prior Reform Attempts Have Been Ineffective

Elite Theory of Political Influence

The More Subtle Influence of Money on Public Policy

More of Us Are Not Voting—and We’re Working Harder for Less

Barriers to Policy Reform in General

Possible Ways Forward

End the Doctrine of Corporate Personhood

Require Disclosure of All Funding Sources and Connections

Broaden Civics Education and Citizen Participation

Conclusion

References

Also by this Author

Introduction

Nobody wants campaign finance reform more than me.

It would save me a fortune.

Andrew Tobias

The following pages present the real challenges in reforming a political system that not only appears to be for sale to the highest bidder, but has actually resulted in a society that favors the interests of corporations and wealthy individuals at the expense of the majority. The evidence of this is the astronomical growth of the incomes of those in the top 10% (and even more so for those in the top 1%), while most of the rest of us continue to work harder for less. Popular opposition to the influence of money in politics has manifested in historical cycles, and while legislation that attempts to redress this problem does eventually get enacted, it usually results in only minor incremental changes which are eventually circumvented by those who benefit from the status quo.

Besides the obvious problem that the persons charged with changing this system are legislators that are always looking to finance their own next election, there is a very real problem with the First Amendment. When most of us hear about the current campaign finance reform arguments we might first think that money is not the same thing as speech, and attempts to correlate them are patently absurd. Alternatively, since most of us (or anyone we know) have no intention of spending this kind of money on a political candidate, we view any potential infringement of First Amendment rights as being minimal. But infringements of rights tend to have a slippery slope effect of gradually casting an ever-widening net over a greater number of persons and situations. 

The following pages present a historical overview of the challenges confronting campaign finance reform as well as broader systemic phenomena that contribute to the