Bodkins 1

Bradley Bodkins
Mrs. Moorer
ENG 1123 RYCI
26 April 2016
Finance Reform for Political Campaigns
The United States of Americas democracy was founded on the principle of the peoples
right to rule themselves. Elections are typically won by someone who the public knows and
trusts to represent their need and interests. In most cases getting public acknowledgment takes a
large sum of money for ads and rallies. Money has always been a large factor in elections.
Whoever raises the most money is likely to win whatever office he or she is running for. The
problem arises when too much money comes from one individual or corporation. Then the
candidate feels as if he or she must put the issues that the individual or corporation cares about
over the cares of the bulk of their constituents. According to Proquest, The total financial
activity of candidates and national conventions for this election [2004] is more than 1billion
dollars (Proquest par. 27). This amount of money is more than most people will ever ma3
ke in their entire lives. This is where the election system has been corrupted. Campaigns grow
more and more corrupt with each election cycle. The amount of money being spent on
campaigns is growing into larger and larger amounts. Campaign finance reform is essential for
America to be a truly democratic system.
The Bill of Rights is a list of rights granted to citizens in the Constitution. These rights
have only been applied to people in the past. However a court case called Citizens United vs.
Federal Election Commission allowed corporations the same First Amendment rights as people
have (Raskin 17). This monumental court case changed the way elections were run. It said it was
Constitutional for any corporation to back a candidate, to give a candidate money, and to
campaign for a candidate. Because the Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporations they could
now support candidates and it is now federally legal. This means no state could make any law
opposing it. All laws already in place were nullified from then on. Jamie Raskin of Nation says,

Bodkins 2
Support for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United is growing because, as
Justice Stevens objected, A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent
members believe laws are being bought and sold(Raskin 20). Which means America must
change the publics mind until the public demands change. Raskin also says, Before Citizens
United came down, corporations were already spending billions of dollars lobbying, running
issue ads, launching political action committees, and soliciting PAC contributions (Raskin1718). This means that all the things that people were doing in secret to finance campaigns are now
acceptable practices, and the only way to change it is to amend the Constitution. Changing the
Constitution is one of the hardest things to accomplish in politics. It has been done less than 27
times. Therefore Citizens United does not look as if it will be overturned very soon. This means
corporations will continue to give massive amounts of money to back candidates they like and
oppose the candidates they do not like. This is not how democracy is supposed to work,
democracy should work to benefit the masses not the elite few.
Advertisement is a major way Americans form their opinions on political candidates.
Advertisement is on television, radio, internet, and on the roadways. Ads are quickly spreading to
every part of an Americans life. Politicians use ads to make their name known and to spread
their message. Politicians also use these advertisements to discredit or in some way make their
opponents look bad in the eyes of the public. This type of negative advertisements has been
increasing in number with each new election cycle. The general public does not always check the
facts of negative advertisements. This means they are more inclined to believe what they hear.
Candidates with the more money have the ability to buy more advertisement. Candidates with
small amounts of money are not able to have the recognition that comes with constant
advertisement. Small time candidates are also not able to defend themselves from the negative
ads because all their money is being spent on just trying to be recognized. The American people

Bodkins 3
have become acclimated to thinking campaigns can only be won by spending major amounts of
money (Bennet 68). The corporations know that they hold this perception in the American
population and they know how to use it. They use campaign contributions and advertisement as
leverage over the candidates decisions. A candidate wont be able to win elections honestly if he
or she does not have the right connections and once the candidate finds the right connections he
or she lose his or her personal identities. Raskin says all that matters is the corporation and the
actual candidate means nothing (Raskin 18). This means that a candidate that is not really known
to the general public. If the candidate does not want to cheat and somehow rig the election he or
she is running in he or she only has the choice to sell out to a corporate backer or lose the
election. This is a problem with American democracy. People who could run things best cannot
win unless they know who is willing to back them, but if they have a corporation backing them,
people will only see the corporate backing. If the corporation goes bankrupt the candidate is left
without any type of help, and if the corporation is in some type of scandal the candidate is
immediately tied to that scandal. Reform is needed so that a candidate can act separately from
the people or corporations that back them. There can be no advertisement if there is no one to
pay for the advertisements. In the Constitution, Supreme Court judges are not elected but
appointed, and serve their terms for life. This is because the founders of the country did not want
corruption in the court. Elected officials however can still be corrupted, for America to truly be
democratic the candidate should be elected by the people, using the peoples money. There needs
to be limits on how much an individual can spend on a particular candidate and there should be
even stricter limits on how much a corporation can spend on a candidate, especially when
dealing with advertisement.
Political action committees are also a very big problem when it comes to elections. They
are organizations that are separate from the candidate. They can hold rallies, and buy television

Bodkins 4
or radio advertisements, and they can use the ad time to back a candidate or they can slander
their candidates opposition. They are supposed to have nothing to do with the candidate and
there can not be collaboration or contact between the PAC and the candidate. Enforcing no
collaboration is hard and can easily be sidestepped and it is noticeable because PACs will be
running ads hours after a candidate announces something. John Nichols of Nation described legal
loop holes that are making it easier for PACs to rule political campaigns. The most recent
election was ran by SuperPACs but no one heard about it because the SuperPACs took advantage
of the fact that many people in the news are being replaced local TV stations that are to
concerned with money (Nichols 11). If there truly were no collaboration between candidate and
super PACs it would take time for ad writers to write the ads, but there seems to be no lag time
between the two. The focus of the 2010 elections was changed to propaganda by political group
when it should have been on things like the oil spill, the coal mine disaster, and the housing
market (Raskin 18-20). This is due to super PACs and their help in changing the subject of
elections. They draw attention away from failures in a candidate or an administration and focus
on the good things that they have done. This is a failure of democracy because it makes people
forget bad things that have happened. This is where negative advertisement comes in to play.
Political parties will slander other political parties. The American people are very afraid of what
could happen rather than what is happening. Some PACs also cheat the system since they are
large groups. Peter Schweizer of USA Today say this, [u]sing something called robo-doners,
fraudsters can generate thousands of small donations to evade the rules. Many campaigns
exacerbate the problem by intentionally maximizing such donations (Schweizer par 4). With
large groups like SuperPACs it is hard to figure out who is to blame this political corruption. It is

Bodkins 5
also hard to track because of the anonymous nature of some of the donations. This is why
SuperPACs need to be abolished.
Whether it is by Constitutional change or just America in general changing, change must
happen. Change is hard but necessary. America would not exist if it had not been for the people
who wanted the freedom to rule themselves. They laid out plans for an America that would be
ruled by the people and for the people. The general masses would be the deciding vote, not the
few people who had wealth. The system has become broken. Now a single billionaire with a
large amount of disposable income has more influence than hundreds and hundreds of regular
people. People have become complacent with that being how politics work, but people need to
start to see how this is harming democracy. This needs to change; the federal election
commission needs to enact laws to change how American politics works. There needs to be a
Constitutional amendment in place to say that corporations are in fact not people and that they
have no First Amendment rights in the Constitution of The United States of America. America
needs campaign finance reform if the country wants to be a truly democratic system.

Works Cited
Bennet, James. The New Price of American Politics. Atlantic Monthly 310.3 (2012): Literary
Reference Center. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
Nichols, John, and Robert W. McChestney. The Assault Of The Super Pacs. Nation 294.6
(2012): 11-17. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
Proquest Staff. Campaign Finance Timeline. Leading Issues Timelines. 2013: SIRS Issues
Researcher. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
Raskin, Jamie. Citizens United And the Corporate Court. Nation 295.15 (2012): 17-20
Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

Bodkins 6
Schweizer, Peter. Campaign Finance Tweaks Can Fix Big Problems. USA Today. 28 Nov.
2012: SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.