Money Talks: Free Speech and Political Equality in Campaign Finance Reform

• Main Author: Paterson, Patrick
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2011
• Subjects: Campaign Finance; Free Speech; Constitutional Law; Legislation; Politics
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/263; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1269&context=cmc_theses

Justifications for campaign finance regulations in the United States have traditionally taken one of two approaches. The first and most common has been to allege that unrestricted campaign contributions and expenditures lend themselves to corruption, or to the appearance of corruption. The second, used far less often than the first, has argued that unchecked spending on an election compromises the principle of political equality--the idea that each individual should have equal say in the democratic process. This paper defends political equality as a value worth preserving, demonstrates that our current campaign finance system is dangerous to political equality, proposes some solutions to that problem, and evaluate the constitutionality of those solutions.