“I’m not saying the lawmakers are crooks but who’s phone call are they going to return: the guy that gave them 15 million for their campaign or the person that gave them their last $5 for their campaign?” Ann Hellmuth, President of the League of Women Voters of Orange County, said while speaking on behalf of her organization about their opinion on the unintended consequences limitless campaign contributions might have. “We feel that unlimited campaign contributions make it very, very difficult for the small person to be heard. It’s just a rule of law: money speaks.”
If you’re not the sort that keeps yourself entirely up-to-date on political gossip, there is a current case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission heading toward the Supreme Court that aims to ban the combined, overall limits an individual can contribute to multiple campaigns and committees per election cycle, and Ann Hellmuth along with a few others believe this might be of legitimate concern.
The proponent, an Alabama business man backed by the GOP, believes that the aggregate limits are an unconstitutional restriction on free speech, however he does not challenge the present limits an individual can give in regards to any one campaign, committee, or political candidate. For more detailed information on those particular limits you can visit the Federal Election Commission website.
Now, although Ann Hellmuth’s example of $15 million is a slight exaggeration since the McCutcheon case only seeks to ban the biennial aggregate limits individual contributors can donate ($123,200), rather than the specific donation amounts allowed for federal candidates ($2,600), it still serves to get her argument across about the unintentional ramifications limitless campaign contributions can incur. The consequences, she insists, were this case to win in court would primarily affect the little people who might see a drastic reduction in their political influence and power.
Terri Fine, a professor teaching at UCF for the past 24 years who holds a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Connecticut agrees with Hellmuth, but believes the risks inherent in the campaign finance process is of a lesser problem when compared to that of the severe civic illiteracy of the general populace. She claims that big money would not be so effective, or at least policymakers would not be so persuaded by lobbyists and sizable campaign donations, if only more American citizens would actively engage in the political process.
“If people had civic literacy it wouldn’t be as effective. When you get down to it, the problem is the people and their civic ignorance. People are not willing to find meaningful information and other sources.
“They would rather hear a campaign slogan, that usually say stuff like ‘well he’s gonna raise taxes, or he hates women, or he hates babies, or he loves abortion’ or whatever it is. But what you ought to do is look at that person’s record and the actual context of their statements, whatever it might be. People like to use fear to motivate, and if you let yourself be motivated by fear, it’s your fault,” Fine said, addressing the core flaw that allows big money to yield so much political power.
Fine suggests we can significantly reduce the persuasive effect money has on congress members by increasing civic learning and appealing to them in greater numbers because in the end “elected officials are very aware that it’s not the lobbyists that get them elected; it’s the voters.”
Fine is convinced the best option to counteract the huge influence money has on legislation is for more people to smarten up and speak up. In other words, to trump the power of big money in politics ordinary American folk with less spare cash in their pocket need to be much, much louder.
A UCF student majoring in Political Science and a member of the Democrats Club named Jordan Allen also predicts the same. He reasons that campaign contribution limits exist to level the playing field between economic classes and discourage corruption, so to do away with those precautionary limits might result in an unfair advantage favoring the wealthy and force grassroots movements to work harder to get noticed and compete with the political power held by money.
“Contribution limits are necessary, they give the smaller voices like grassroots organizations more access to government, so limitless campaign contribution would handicap them unless they get a massive amount of people,” Allen said when asked what he thinks about the contribution limits.
A political science professor named Quan Li who’s been teaching at UCF since 2006 figures banning the donation limits would do more harm than good but says that soft money, which are political contributions made in such a way as to avoid the United States regulations for federal election campaigns, already appears to have made any attempts to regulate campaign finance futile.
“Scholars do to a large extent agree that money buys access to legislators’ time, which can influence the direction of legislation. The current limit on monetary contributions to campaigns is not working well because of the existence of soft money. Removing the limit on personal contributions to campaigns is going to make the situation worse, in my opinion,” Li said.
Russ Choma who is the money-in-politics reporter for Opensecrets.org― the website for the Center of Responsive Politics which investigates the influence of money in politics― also had a few valuable thoughts to add to the issue, some that were perhaps not so positive but realistic nonetheless.
“It’s not entirely clear how much of a difference doing away with the aggregate limits would make. That’s not to say it won’t make a big difference but there are a couple of other factors to consider, including the fact that the situation already pretty heavily favors people with a lot of money,” Choma said in an email interview.
Choma believes the way the political system is set up, especially after the case of Citizens United in 2010 which granted corporations the same First Amendment speech protections as humans receive, already gives a disproportionate amount of political power to extremely wealthy individuals and corporations because of the existence of soft money that allows individuals and corporations to circumvent the regulatory laws in place. Therefore, Choma is not quite sure it would make matters that much worse, as things are already arranged rather inequitably.
“Wealthy individuals who are steeped in electoral politics typically enjoy intimate access to political figures and get their voices heard with much greater ease than someone with little money to bring to the table” Dave Levinthal, Senior Political Reporter for the Center of Public Integrity, said in an email interview.
Levinthal admits wealthy individuals have it easier in the political arena but believes grassroots organizations certainly will maintain a power of their own, but they will need to be well-run and garner as much attention as possible through use of numbers in order to be acknowledged.
