Now, Americans can give money to as many politicians as they want
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If there’s anything Americans love, it’s money in politics.
(They probably wouldn’t admit it, but revealed preference—like the $7 billion spent on the 2012 federal elections—suggests as much.)
Now, the US Supreme Court has decided (pdf) to eliminate the aggregate cap on contributions to political candidates and parties. Currently, donors can give $2,600 per candidate, to a maximum of 18 candidates, and additional $75,000 to party committees and traditional political action committees, for a maximum spend of $123,200 in each two-year election cycle. Now, unless US lawmakers change the statute—unlikely, since they all benefit from it—there are no limits on the number of candidates a donor may contribute money, and perhaps more importantly, it will allow party committees to raise significantly larger sums from donors.
The ostensible justification for this is that political spending is speech, and the First Amendment guarantees guarantees free (as in unrestricted) speech. More pragmatically, the court appears to be taking the logical next step after its last major campaign finance decision, Citizens United, which allowed independent political groups (so-called Super PACs) to spend unlimited amounts on ads in support of political candidates as long as they don’t “coordinate” with them, a rule more honored in the breach than in observance. Still, it didn’t make sense to the majority of the court that a donor could spend as much as she wanted supporting candidates indirectly but give only $48,000 to them directly.
Campaign finance reform advocates fear this will give the wealthy even more influence in the US political system and make politicians spend even more time spent courting rich donors, especially at a time of rising economic inequality.
http://qz.com/194640/now-americans-can-give-politicians-as-much-money-as-they-want/
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