With the 2024 election cycle under way, it’s time to discuss our system of campaign funding for state and federal elections. This year is predicted to be the most expensive on record, with nearly $16 billion to be spent on advertising alone. This rapid rise in political spending is widely unpopular, so we should ask ourselves, “How did we get here?”

It wasn’t always like this. One hundred years ago, as a result of corruption in the Gilded Age, common-sense campaign finance laws were enacted to restrict corporate money from politics and address the dominance of the industry titans who had too much influence over our government. However, in the last 40 years, a series of Supreme Court decisions have dismantled these laws that were intended to protect the people’s voice in government.

Most of us are old enough to remember a time when politicians were held accountable with strict limits on political spending. The 2010 Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v. FEC, gave rise to the creation of independent expenditure groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money in elections under the guise of “free speech.”

While candidate campaigns have to disclose their donors, independent expenditure groups exploit loopholes to hide the sum and source of their money. This is the mechanism through which foreign money is funneled into U.S. elections.

The only viable solution to correct the Citizens United court ruling is an amendment to the U.S. constitution. Fortunately, a supermajority of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, already support such an amendment. I urge your readers to contact their members of Congress and ask them to support the For Our Freedom Amendment to secure the free speech and representation of all Americans!

 

Chris Cayer

Eustis

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