Election Reform Amendment Essay -- Campaign Finance Reform, Super PACs

Introduction: In the last election cycle, 132 Americans accounted for sixty percent of all the Super Political Action Committees’ (PACs) money (Lessig 2013). With statistics like this, it is no wonder the average American does not feel as though his or her vote is meaningful. In the scheme of the corruption of political money, it truly isn’t. In the current American way of government elections, the average citizen does not choose the candidate; he or she merely has the opportunity to decipher which best fits his or her beliefs, out of the ones suggested by the large election donors. Since this is what a citizen’s vote currently decides, many Americans feel they are choosing the lesser of two evils when electing a candidate. This is not to say that all elected officials are evil, it just confirms that citizens are not getting the voice they are assured in the Constitution. Year after year incumbents are reelected, but the approval rating of Congress is lower than root canals and head lice (Jensen, 2013). In the 2002 Congressional elections, 94% of the candidates who raised the most money won their races (Ackerman & Ayres, 2002). When these statistics are viewed together, they do not make sense. Why would unpopular incumbents retain their seat in office? The only explanation is funding, and the trend has always been that the candidate with the most funds wins; most notably with incumbents in Congress. Candidates are not all to blame for this happening, a great deal of the problem can be attributed to the way the system has been established. Instead of candidates focusing on key interests, they focus on what will allow them to earn the most money. As Leslie Byrne, former representative from Virginia, was told when coming into ... ...nce (2013). Lester Land: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It. TED Conferences. McPhail, Stuart (2013). "A Million Corporations With a Million Campaign Ads: Citizens United, the People’s Rights Amendment, and the Speech of Non-Persons" Retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/stuart_mcphail/1 Nichols, John, and Robert McChesney (2013). Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-media Election Complex Is Destroying America. New York City: Nation Books. O’Donnell, Ryan (2013). Support for Amending the Constitution to Overturn Citizens United is One-Third of the Way There. Free Speech for People Organization. Retrieved from http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/601 Page, Susan (2012). Why 90 Million Americans Won't Vote in November. USATODAY.COM. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-08-15/non-voters-obama-romney/57055184/1.