Kudos to Udall, et al.. We must rein in the influence of money on elections.<\/p>\n
Cleaning up our campaign finance system | NMPolitics.net<\/a><\/p>\n Over the past 10 years, the influence of corporations and special interests in political campaigns has exploded.<\/font> Each time a regulation is put in place, special interests circumvent the rules through legal loopholes or use the courts to strike down the law. The problem isn\u2019t one particular law or judicial decision; it\u2019s the fact that Congress can no longer effectively regulate the flow of money into campaigns. The only sure fix is a constitutional amendment that gives Congress the authority to reform the campaign finance system.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t get here over night. The Supreme Court has issued a series of bad decisions<\/font> that have crowded and distorted our elections with a flood of corporate and special-interest money that can swing an election one way or the other. In 1976 the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for a broken system in the Buckley v. Valeo <\/a>decision. In that case, the Court incorrectly decided that imposing modest restrictions on campaign expenditures violates the First Amendment right to free speech. This established the flawed precedent that money and speech are the same thing \u2013 something I strongly disagree with.<\/p>\n More recently the Supreme Court issued an even worse decision in Citizens United v. FEC<\/a>. In this case, they granted the same free-speech rights to corporations and other special interests that the Constitution guarantees to individuals. With Buckley v. Valeo equating money to speech, and now Citizens United giving Free Speech rights to large corporations and interest groups, the political system is becoming evermore unbalanced.<\/p>\n While the average American only has one vote and limited resources to contribute to political candidates, these organizations can now pour vast sums of money into advertising that influences the outcome of our elections. As a result, in the elections of 2010, New Mexicans and all Americans saw a new breed of attack ads from out-of-state interests. The vast majority were negative. These new organizations raised and spent unlimited funds for the first time since before there was television. In the upcoming 2012 election, you can certainly count on even more.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Cleaning up our campaign finance system | NMPolitics.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kudos to Udall, et al.. We must rein in the influence of money on elections. Cleaning up our campaign finance system | NMPolitics.net How we got here, By Tom Udall \u2022 11\/03\/11 Over the past 10 years, the influence of corporations and special interests in political campaigns has exploded. Each time a regulation is put … Continue reading Save Democracy: Money does NOT equal free speech!<\/span> \n
How we got here, By Tom Udall<\/a><\/b> \u2022 11\/03\/11<\/h2>\n