This rising tide of soft money has all but eroded the three pillars of America’s campaign-finance system: the ban on corporate contributions, strict limits on individual donations and public financing for the presidential campaign. Companies and unions may be barred from making direct political donations, but they can spend unlimited amounts of soft money on issue ads. All candidates may be banned from taking contributions of more than $1,000 from individuals or $5,000 from political action committees in any election cycle; but they can take unlimited sums from outside sources by establishing separate soft-money committees. When Bill Clinton and Bob Dole introduced the idea of soft money in 1996, they seemed to have discovered a novel way to get round the election rules. Now soft money has become just another part of the American political landscape.
Money has a way of getting round the rules, and the Supreme Court does not help by (mistakenly) equating freedom of speech with freedom to spend money ad libitum on getting elected. But there is a growing sense that those explanations remain excuses rather than decent reasons. Without action, campaign-finance reform will surely play an even greater role in the next election. And nobody should be surprised.
Lexington: Selling America to the highest bidder | The Economist
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