Campaign Financing, aka Bribes

This is a large subject. Tracking the money "donated" for campaigns is no easy task. But there are several organizations that supply a lot of information on this, including OpenSecrets.Org and The Sunlight Foundation. I won't go into detail in this post, but I encourage readers to explore these sites and others.

I've cited these bribes as one of the four biggest reasons why our politics are disfunctional in my post " The (Root) Causes Of Our Dissatisfaction.

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The vast majority of campaign donations (as measured in dollars) are nothing more than bribes. I'm not talking about regular people who give a few dollars to their favorite candidate. I'm talking about wealthy individuals and corporations and other organizations who buy access and lobbying clout by ponying up the mother's milk that propels (or more likely keeps) politicians in power.

This extends across the political spectrum. One may agree or disagree with the politics or the contributors, but fair is fair and facts are facts. The oil companies (and many more) buy the GOP; the Democrats have been purchased by unions (and many more). You think a politician isn't going to listen to a bundler or an organization who can rain millions of soft dollars?Can you buy that kind of access?

There have been efforts to rein this disgrace in, although, to be fair, the politicians aren't trying that hard. But the efforts of a few honest pols and many more concerned citizens have been blunted at nearly every turn by the monied interests-- and also, a legitimate issue: the First Amendment, and its guarantee of free speech. The courts have consistently ruled that the First Amendment trumps any attempt to limit the financing of advertising on behalf of candidates. There are limits on direct donations to the candidates, but no limits on donations to the PACs or the Super-PACs, and constitutionally, there doesn't seem much that can be done about it.

When the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that corporations have the same First Amendment rights to free speech as individuals, the floodgates opened for companies to donate as. To be fair, Citizens United didn't create the problem of bribes, but that decision aggravated the practice in a big way. And to think of corporations as people (hello, Mitt), is just ludicrous.

I'll have a lot more to say about this. For now, remember: Your politician has been bought. Your vote decides which interests you'd like your representatives to be owned by.