Of course money has too much influence on the political process. This fuels a corrosive cynicism in the general public that keeps voters away from the polls and turned off from the political process. Knowing that we’ll never eliminate the influence of big money, we need to work hard to infuse alternative sources of “Clean Money” into the system and provide candidates without access to wealth an alternative source of funds. Here in North Carolina, we’ve already taken a big step with the availability of public financing for judges (NC Supreme Ct and Ct. of Appeals). Now, we need to continue that trend and provide public financing for Council of State candidates (anybody remember Meg Scott Phipps?) and legislative candidates. This type reform could have a far-reaching effect on all the other issues that our government deals with (education, health care, taxes, etc.)
In general, I tend to think that the problem is too little money being spent for campaigns, not too much. However, when there are so many restrictions on regular folk as to who can contribute how much, and to whom, while legislative leaders are free to dole out campaign cash at will to their favored colleagues (including using the state budget to do them favors, as we have seen repeatedly), it begins to seem that our representatives are being selected for us by the House and Senate leadership. They certainly act that way once they get to Raleigh. Look how many Democrats who were against the lottery HAD to vote for it because boss Black told them to.
Of course money has too much influence on the political process. This fuels a corrosive cynicism in the general public that keeps voters away from the polls and turned off from the political process. Knowing that we’ll never eliminate the influence of big money, we need to work hard to infuse alternative sources of “Clean Money” into the system and provide candidates without access to wealth an alternative source of funds. Here in North Carolina, we’ve already taken a big step with the availability of public financing for judges (NC Supreme Ct and Ct. of Appeals). Now, we need to continue that trend and provide public financing for Council of State candidates (anybody remember Meg Scott Phipps?) and legislative candidates. This type reform could have a far-reaching effect on all the other issues that our government deals with (education, health care, taxes, etc.)
In general, I tend to think that the problem is too little money being spent for campaigns, not too much. However, when there are so many restrictions on regular folk as to who can contribute how much, and to whom, while legislative leaders are free to dole out campaign cash at will to their favored colleagues (including using the state budget to do them favors, as we have seen repeatedly), it begins to seem that our representatives are being selected for us by the House and Senate leadership. They certainly act that way once they get to Raleigh. Look how many Democrats who were against the lottery HAD to vote for it because boss Black told them to.