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What’s New
Congress is considering a series of bills that lift campaign contribution limits, create enormous loopholes to allow candidates to evade certain rules, and even permit incumbents to play by a different (re: looser) set of rules than challengers. Imagine a baseball game in which one team is given a 10 run lead at the start. These rollbacks in campaign finance law represent an unprecedented power grab that further tilts the playing field in favor of wealthy interests.
How You Can Help
Call your representative and ask him or her to oppose any bill that rolls back current law and opens the door to even greater influence from wealthy interests.
Summary
More than 90% of those who raise the most money win elections and the higher the contribution limits, the greater the advantage to those with access to big money. In the absence of any rules, the public would have no opportunity to know about and hold politicians accountable for multi-million dollar backroom deals with wealthy interests.
Rollbacks on current campaign finance such as allowing unlimited contributions from powerful interests, skewing the rules to favor incumbents and legalizing the laundering of campaign contributions through alternative campaign committees would skew our elections even further in the direction of the powerful interests.
• H.R. 1316, the Pence-Wynn bill named for its sponsors, removes certain contributions limits that would allow wealthy individuals to spread millions of dollars around to their candidates of choice and, in so doing, crush the voices of candidates who may well be a stronger voice for the voters in the district.
• H.R. 1606, the misnamed Online Freedom of Speech Act, does nothing to protect online speakers but allows political parties to raise unlimited contributions to buy pop up ads and email lists.
• H.R. 513, the 527 Reform Act of 2006, has the laudable goal of leveling the playing field among all political committees but does so only by removing rules that would allow donors to bypass current contribution limits. Under the ‘reform,’ candidates could direct wealthy donors to other political committees that then redirect the funds back to the candidate.
At a time when many already feel like our government is unresponsive and rarely accountable, tearing down the campaign finance laws will make it even harder for citizens to get their voices heard on issues like healthcare, energy policy, education, public health and safety and more.
