We look at the over ruling of 1976 Supreme Court decision in which the court decided to uphold legislation for reforms in campaign finance and its implications. In elections we now have regulated speech instead of free speech and there are many different rules which are to be followed at the time of election.
Role of Free Speech
Free speech as we know plays a vital role in shaping public opinion as well as effect elections resulting in formation of right government. However, how much free speech do we actually have is questionable.
Campaign Finance Reforms
These reforms if implemented would mean money could not buy speech. Contributions by business magnets can be cramped so that political system in the country can be improved. Such implementation will also mean that government’s powers will not flow into executive rooms of the rich or let their wishes imposed upon people of the nation. If we let it happen then it would totally corrupt our political system.
Political Speech
If we look at everything from a different angle, we will find that political speech requires funds. You need money for hiring staff for your campaign, create website, purchase political spots and do many other things. If a politician does not have money then it will be hard for him to communicate with people.
Thus, politicians do need contributions but that does not mean that rich contributors usually manipulate elections. It is never that a business group works together to vote any political party to government and most often these business groups are fragmented. In addition to it, according to well know economic theory known as law of diminishing returns, more money invested in the political system does not mean better results, almost always the extra money pumped in is misspent than being used correctly.
Government Regulations
Even if some influence of business groups remains over government, it does not mean all government regulations start changing. On the contrary, bulk of federal spending still goes towards middle and poor class, and the rich pay most taxes in the country. The favors business groups are able to get from the government are in the form of subsidies or tax breaks but these are very small part of the overall big economic picture, which is not affected by businesspersons and their election contributions.
As we can clearly see, campaign finance reforms are not the right way of preventing corruption in the political system or the elections. The thing that is required is public awareness so that only the right political group forms the government.
