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…”
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?
