Big money, big problems

Politics in Minnesota has an interesting list of the third party donations to legislative candidates in swing districts for last year’s election. There aren’t many surprises, but the amount of money is interesting and a little disturbing when you consider the spending limits that most candidates agree to abide by for public financing.

The argument on public financing for campaigns generally comes down to whether or not financial contributions constitute First Amendment protected speech. The way that campaign donations work, however, is not to get candidates to speak so much as to get legislators to shut the hell up when moments for reconciliation, reform and compromise arise.

UPDATE: It seems foolish, but I neglected to mention in this post that one of the victims of the budget cuts this year was the Political Contribution Refund program (PCR). This was the program that allowed Minnesotans to get refunds for small donations to state candidates of their choice. It allowed campaigns to build a larger pool of small donors instead of relying on those who can afford larger donations or the very third party donations mentioned in the above link. No the world won’t end, but this will change the way campaigns are funded and not for the better.

Comments

  1. Interesting use of the word “donor”, since, due to the rebate, the person isn’t quite donating their own money.

    As for your use of the word “better”; sure, things just don’t seem as good as they used to be ever since we started running out of other peoples’ money to spend, eh.

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