What Are The Pros And Cons Of Campaign Finance Reform

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I. Introduction Campaign Finance Reform is the political effort in the United States declared to change money involvement in political campaigns in order to provide fairness of elections. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 (also known as “McCain-Feingold” or “Shays-Meehan”, after its sponsors), the recent federal law on campaign finance, revised some of the limitations set in 1974, and prohibited unregulated contributions and spending by independent organizations in favor of candidates (“soft money”) and put limitations on political advertising. While declared goal of the Campaign Finance Reform appears to be upright, its norms in fact conceal threat to constitutional freedoms, gives benefits to certain groups and has number of unintended harmful consequences. II. Support for Campaign Finance Reform Advocates of the Campaign Finance Reform build their argument on the fact that election process requires significant funds. They appeal that such expenditures are unreasonable and, moreover, imply corruption and/or rise disparity of candidates resulting from availability of funds for them. As Kobrak (2002) notes, “The historically unprecedented amounts in congressional and…show more content…
In fact, campaigns are not particularly costly, according to Smith (2001) with the total spending every two years on congressional campaigning amounting to roughly the cost of one home video rental per eligible voter (p. 63). At the same time Smith (2001) references to studies results which indicate that higher spending is beneficial for public knowledge of candidates and issues, without eroding public faith in government (Ch.3 pp. 39-64). Moreover, campaign expenditures could not be considered wasted, as they are used to purchase professional services and products, correspondingly rising demand for these goods, which ultimately means additional workplaces and incomes for

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