Revision is necessary to prevent the undue influence of wealth, inform and mobilize the public, and promote political accountability.

As a practical matter, if you write a large check, you get to be well known in the party and gain a certain amount of access. Recently, The Nation conducted a survey in which “perhaps the most striking finding of the poll was that while 54 percent of large donors had personally spoken to a federal elected official in the past year, only 9 percent of voters had” (Lake). This access was observed in the 1996 Presidential election, when the White House Lincoln bedroom was used to reward soft money donors to the Democratic Party. In a past State of the Union Address, President Clinton set a deadline of July 4, 1997, for passing a campaign finance reform bill. Needless to say, the bill was never passed, but by setting a deadline he appeared in support of reform. It is a wise move on his part to support a bill aimed at cleaning up Washington. Actions such as this have become common. Although, the President may push for reform, he himself has taken full advantage of soft money donations. John Huang, a Commerce Department official who crafted a fund-raising scheme that allegedly involved laundering contributions of foreign corporations, may have also illegally funneled contributions from representatives of Communist Chin and other governments that sough to influence U.S. foreign policy (Margasak). “All the fundraising problems that happened in 1996 with foreign money can now be done legally and anonymously” making this a very dangerous loophole for democracy (Foerstel). Political leaders need to be held accountable for their actions and those actions that reflect upon them.

Some topics in this essay:
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