Money in politics creates conflicts of interest for every candidate and office holder.
Thanks to Open Secrets, there is readily available data on the alarming amount of money spent on elections. Close to ten billion dollars will be spent on Congressional campaigns this election cycle. That's approximately $20 million per candidate. Members of the House of Representatives, who are subject to election cycles every two years, have to raise $30,000 every day to accumulate this amount of money!
There are a wide variety of organizations that contribute to election campaigns. Many of these organizations provide advice and/or counsel to candidates on pending legislation and most are advocating for specific causes.
It is unrealistic to expect our elected officials to be knowledgeable on all of the problems they are trying to solve. For that reason, it is critical that they get information from subject matter experts to support their legislative efforts. It is perfectly reasonable for subject matter experts to lobby politicians to incorporate their perspective in resulting legislation. Conflicts of interest occur when our elected officials accept money from the very people or entities that are providing them with expert advice.
Nothing would improve the effectiveness of our government more than eliminating this link between money and politics!
Voice of the People and the University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation found that large bipartisan majorities favor a constitutional amendment to allow governments greater freedom to regulate campaign financing (thus overturning the Citizens United decision). Large bipartisan majorities also favor numerous requirements for increasing disclosure of campaign financing. Here's a link that provides more details on these findings and another link to an interactive survey that allows you to evaluate a number of proposals for improving campaign financing.
Most large companies have very strict conflict-of-interest rules. These rules severely restrict gifts or favors that employees can accept, they require all employees to attend conflict of interest and ethics training on an annual basis, and they require them to promptly disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest. It seems only fair for our elected officials to be bound by similar standards.
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