Campaign Finance Reform: Part II. Taking Action

After all this sleaze, the campaign finance reform issue was central to the 2000 elections. The issue was no longer whether something should be done, but what exactly should be done. Finance reports were scrutinized more closely than during previous elections. Legislation was proposed to offer sever versions of lofty goals such as ending the "soft money" contributions made by companies to candidates via the national party, public financing of campaigns, banning "issue advertisements which are not approved by the candidate, and limiting the extents of "attacks" against an opponent that could be made in any advertisement before an election. After two years of intense debate and stall tactics, Congress finally approved campaign finance reform. Now the problem is in the hands of the US judicial system. The US Supreme Court has previously held that money spent in the form of contributions to political campaigns is a form of exercise of free speech. That was the foundation of the system that operated from the vantage that he who has the deepest pockets can shout the loudest.

Demands for campaign finance reform are as ancient as campaigns themselves. It would be blissful to think we had learned the error of our ways on our most recent stroll down Corrupt President Lane, but we have not. Elections are a test of the national spirit. Sometimes we receive a brilliant score; sometimes we barely pass; sometimes we just plain fail. When we fail this test, we must remember that it is more than ourselves and our future aspirations we have failed. It is all that plus our international standing and our prosperity that will suffer the consequences of the ballots we cast today. We must guide ourselves to think very carefully and weigh the options with the diligence we would apply to taking a decision on which our entire futures may depend. In essence that is what your vote is. We will suffer the wrongs of future political swindlers; that truth is inevitable. But many decent and honorable people will also take upon themselves the seemingly insurmountable task of cleaning away the wreckage these future corrupt leaders will leave. It should be our collective goal that the latter by far exceed the former.

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