"...PAC's are being used as vehicles to get around campaign finance laws." Some call it a way to "get around campaign finance laws." Others call it free speech. Limits on contributions to candidates and parties are foolish. Limits on contributions of political action committees are downright pernicious. In fact PACs would not be so powerful if we made it easier to contribute to candidates and parties. Limits on contributions fail in their futile goal of ridding politics of special interest influence. Sorry, but in democracies people organize to try to get the government to respond to their interests. In fact that's part of what democracy is. But the political Puritans imagine a fantasy golden age when we settled political questions objectively, with wise old men arguing high mindedly on reasonable merits only. That golden age, like most golden ages, never existed. James Madison rejected the notion that rights are protected by "parchment barriers" (i.e., barriers written on paper). Instead he suggested, among other things, that the multiplicity of interest and separation of powers are the greatest protections of rights and the surest way to good government.
Campaign finance laws that limit contributions make it harder for people to organize. They invariably favor incumbents. Most dangerously they limit the ability of the people to engage in political speech by putting their money behind candidates, parties, and causes of their choice. On the federal level, George Will has often suggested scrapping the entire campaign finance regulatory system and replacing it with two laws: no foreign money and full disclosure. Now that's campaign finance reform I can get behind.
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