Interest Groups Of Speech

The 1970s began a more active era of campaign finance reform. The passing of the Revenue Act of 1971 allows citizens to contribute one dollar to a presidential candidate’s campaign fund by checking a box on their federal income tax returns. Along with the Revenue Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act was also passed in 1971. This law institutes disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties, and political action committees of donations more than $100. This law also sets a spending limit of $50,000

Regulating soft money has been difficult because of constitutional issues that protect First Amendment rights, and Congress’ rights over regulating political parties must be focused on preventing fraud or corruption (Mason, 1997). Soft money is used to mobilize campaigns by using the money to support voter registration drives, and other similar activities designed to jump start a candidates’ campaign (Brennan Center, 2000). For this reason, soft money is important to an election campaign, and recently the amount of soft money raised for campaigns has skyrocketed. It has become a concern because it is largely unregulated and can be used to gain an unfair

The right of free speech granted to all citizens in the first amendment, the necessity of funding expensive political campaigns, and the fact that small donations make a candidate responsive to the needs of their constituents, all make any restrictions on campaign financing unneeded and onerous. Congress should strike down any bills attempting to reform this essential part of the U.S. election process. Any further restrictions on donations to political campaigns will prove detrimental to the United States functioning system of elections by limiting individuals’ freedom of speech, making our candidate’s campaigns underfunded and unresponsive to the needs of the American people.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. Whether or not on a college campus, people (especially college students) should have the right to speak freely. Everyone does have the right to speak freely, because it is one of the twenty-seven amendments. Colleges all around the United States are now home to many restrictions on free speech. For example, the idea and use of “free speech zones” has made its way to colleges everywhere. A “free speech zone” is a sidewalk sized place where students are allowed to speak their minds freely on college campuses. I know what you’re thinking. This sounds ridiculous. Why are there specific places for people to speak their minds? Aren’t colleges suppose to be a place where students speak their minds and learn new things? Universities should not be able to put any restrictions on free speech.

There were several landmark supreme court cases and laws before Citizens United that attempted to regulate campaign contributions. Political corruption can easily be caused by increased amounts of funds going to a candidate. A candidate will be more likely to benefit corporate interests because that will allow them to get more money later to help in reelection efforts. This becomes problematic because average citizens do not have the ability to donate large sums of money to a candidate. This makes the speech of large corporations worth far more than the average citizen. This can have a drastic impact on the marketplace of ideas. John Stuart Mills in his book, On Liberty, creates the marketplace of ideas. This marketplace consists of all speech being able to have equal weight and face

While gaining support from the general public can be stimulated by countless political figures, the greatest influencer in politics continues to be money. Campaign spending is a strong determinant in voting outcomes, further denoting its overwhelming importance. Funding and spending gain importance relative to the size of the campaign; gaining support for this bill would likely cost a significant amount, as support is needed across the state. Campaigning at this capacity requires advertisements, commercials, appearances, and possibly travel, all of which demand significant funding. However, the nature of this campaign lends itself well to considerable funding, as “organizational contributors tend to support issues in the area of... tax and revenue policy” (Braunstein, 2004, 124). This unwavering support from countless contributors will provide the state legislators an opportunity to broadcast their campaign and positively market Senate Bill 325.

government assistance. The difference between interest groups and political parties is that political parties seek to constitute the government, whereas interest groups try only to influence it. Some of the things that interests groups seek from government are

Recently in the U.S., the most frequent mentioned topic would be 2016 presidential election. People on both sides have donated to political campaigns from the very beginning. And one of the concerns is that can campaign donors write off any of these contributions on their federal income taxes? According to the IRS, the answer is a very clear NO. “You can’t deduct contributions made to a political candidate, a campaign committee, or a newsletter fund. Advertisements in convention bulletins and admissions to dinners or programs that benefit a political party or political candidate aren’t deductible,” informed in IRS Publication 529 (Political Contributions, 2015). It is also non-deductible for any of the portions of dues to lobbying or political activities. Public funding of Presidential elections means that qualified Presidential candidates receive federal government funds to pay for the valid expenses of their political campaigns in both the primary and general elections. Most political contributions, for the obvious reason of creating a more politically disinterested tax system, are not tax deductible.

In the Presidential race of 2008, it is estimated that the combined spending of outside groups, political parties, and candidates totaled to over five billion dollars (Beneson and Tarr 2012). American politics has created a culture of “political elites” that requires every candidate to raise millions of dollars. Although organizations like the FEC tracks these large sums of money, the amount of money a person must spend publicizing and promoting themselves has become uncontrollable. Jeb Bush’s Super PAC has already raised over 103 million dollars and filmed countless hours of interviews of the Candidate, skirting regulations within McCain-Feingold that prevent outside sources from directly creating scripts and advertisements with the Bush campaign (Miller and Elliot 2015). Although Bush and his supporters may have the constitutional right to raise millions of dollars, and publish deceptive advertisements, their actions still promote a sentiment of power that should not be allotted to one person. Regardless of the strides that have been made to reduce corruption within campaign finance reform, and support citizen’s most basic freedoms to support whichever candidate they wish, the entire campaign process has become too politically elite. The necessity for million dollar campaigns and extensive financial backing prevents

Eliminating this restriction meant that corporations could now reach the electorate during a crucial time; the days in which most people talked about elections and seriously considered candidates. It is no secret that candidates do fundraisers because money buys television and radio airtime, billboards along the highways and Internet advertisements among other means to reach voters. Also, the lay person is usually not fully informed of all the goals and plans of presidential or nomination candidates. In this fast paced economy lay people are more concerned about daily errands and responsibilities than doing independent research about candidates. Most of people’s knowledge about candidates comes from television and radio broadcasts as well as the Internet. Further, as with any other major event in the United States, many people follow developments in the election trail more closely toward the end of it. Therefore, even if the Supreme Court did not technically allow the wealthy to spend more money on elections, it certainly created an incentive to do so. This incentive is the opportunity to reach the electorate during a time in which they pay more attention to radio, television and Internet election

“Interest groups are no less a threat than they are an expression of freedom” (Berry, 1984).

Limits cannot be placed on the amount of money companies and groups spend on lobbying in Texas because this money is not coming from the government or from taxes. This money comes from companies and groups who voluntarily chose to fund lobbyist agendas or pay for lobbying on their behalf. It is very difficult to control how much a group can “donate” to a cause or how much they spend lobbying without angering lobbyists or the companies who pay the lobbyists. If individuals choose to set aside millions of dollars to fund lobbyists, that is their own prerogative. Lobbyists are often seeking “face time” with legislators, which makes “the spending worthwhile from the lobbyists’ standpoint” (Ramsey). The

The idea of money in politics has always been a polarizing issue. For over one hundred years the discussion of individuals and corporations financing campaigns has led to a debate of corruption versus free speech. Is money in politics a corrupting influence that always leads to quid pro quo? Or, is it an issue of allowing individuals to use their money as an extension of their freedom of speech? Recently, campaign finance reform has been a very dynamic issue. With the last major supreme court case Citizens United v. FEC, money in politics has taken a significant turn from the status quo. With only seven years after the Citizens United ruling we can already see the effects of less regulated free speech in politics.

o this day, America has kept the vision that was described by Winthrop and Reagan. In Governor Winthrop's sermon, he spoke of a "city upon a hill" and "dreamed that [the] community would be a guiding light and shining example to the rest of the world" with the blessing of God, and in President Reagan's speech he spoke of a "shining city", that would be a "tall, proud city" and was "God-blessed". In both, they speak of America as being an example to the entire world and is blessed by god, which, the view of America still remains today. America still holds the vision of being an example to the rest of the world, primarily because it was the main country to spark the ideas of freedom, and therefore had continually held onto the vision that Governor

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” implemented by youth, authorities has limited the right to free speech in schools, in order to “protect” societies generations from reality. However, the limitation of free speech is unjust as it revokes America’s constitutional rights, for with each item we restrict, a piece is worn away from America’s identity. Although it may not seem possible with due time the nation of the United States will transform into the dystopian society children read about in fictional novels. Therefore, the belief to enforce restrictions on the common masses’ voice is to oppress man’s humanity.