The Election Law Blog has a helpful summary of today’s Supreme Court decision against limits on campaign financing. The Court ruled that just because a candidate is wealthy does not justify increasing the fundraising limits on his opponent. This follows previous court rulings that frown on limiting the fund raising of candidates.
I do not personally agree that money and speech are equivalent, particularly in Politics. The freedom of speech is not, to me, the freedom to drown out an opponent or prevent them from being heard. Increasingly it seems to me that the only solution to level the playing field in elections, and neutralizing the influence of narrow special interests, is to use public funds to balance the marketing reach of the candidates. I propose that candidates can raise as much money as they like but at reasonable intervals they, and their opponents, can receive public funds to ensure that their point of view is being heard by the voters.
To me the competition is not just between candidates but between the public interest and narrow financial special interests. The cost of public financing of campaigns is far less than the cost of accommodating narrow special interests.
Born 1950, Married, Living in Austin Texas, Semi
Retired Small Business owner and investor. My political interest
evolved out of his business experience that the best decisions come out of an objective gathering of information and a pragmatic consideration of costs and benefits. I am interested in promoting Centrist candidates and Policies. My posts are mostly about people and policies that I believe are part of the solution rather the problem.