Campaign Financing Should Be Heavily Regulated

:)Let's do this! P1. Mo' Money, Mo' ProblemsCertainly, money has some affect on elections, but not so much that we should be willing to amend or violate the constitution to get rid of it. My opponent cited two sentences from a paper I brought forth as evidence, and proceeded to claim that it showed money has an impact. Essentially, all the paper said was that if you support/don't support certain issues, you may lose votes. .. Surprise. My opponent claims that, since the paper mentioned an example where a candidate's advocacy for an unpopular policy was released by television, that buying air time must be essential to victory. Therefore, more money = winning elections. .. .. And he said that I was jumping to conclusions. Remember, the three extremely credible authors of the same paper that he just quoted to "prove" that point all say that money doesn't affect politics in any significant way. Yes, sure you can get a little extra airtime with a lot of donations, but the bottom line is that people care more about what you're saying than how many times you've said it. My opponent said the fact that the we have a 2 party system shows us that money does have an impact. But to say that the two party system exist because the parties have so much money is to ignore other factors (e. g. Strategic Voting[1], and the fact that third party candidates DO get elected[2][3][4]). Next, my opponent states that lobbyists have somehow lost their status as "people" when they accept corporate donations. I fail to see the connection. Corporations also are made up of people. But corporations don't donate as much as you might think, anyways. Professor Michael Kang (PhD in government from Harvard) says why. "Even before BCRA and even where more express corporate electioneering was permitted, corporations tended not to spend heavily on campaigning, at least not near levels feared by Citizens United's many critics. As one professor of corporate governance noted, "Getting into politics means picking fights . . . . And picking fights is generally what companies don't want to do. "[5]Again, special interest groups are merely a collection of concerned citizens who raise money to support candidates for the cause they feel strongly about. That's prefectly reasonable, perfectly legal, and not a problem. So don't buy the conspiracy theories of people, such as Gary Younge (who has no credentials or education on the subject), when they try to scare you with quotes like the one Pro provided. I've listed many professors and PhDs, along with peer reviewed journals and papers, all stating that the Campaign Finance system needs no more regulation. P2. Poor People ProblemsSo to quote my opponent. .. "ONLY 0.14% of Americans donate $200 or more to political parties, organisations or candidates. " . .. . So we're supposed to take that as a sign that 99.86% of Americans are unable to donate as much as those 0.14%? That makes little sense. The information is misleading. First of all, less than 15% of Americans actually donate to campaigns. The number was around 12% in 2004, and jumped to 13% in 2008. [6] So that brings the number up to around 1%. 1% of all donors choose to donate more than $200. This also doesn't mean that those who don't donate more than $200 can't. It just means they chose not to for whatever reason. We can't allow ourselves to just assume that most people can't keep up. Rather, some people just want to donate more. It's their money. They have every right. Also, to reiterate, I've cited experts and papers that state that small donations are still important and impactful in an election. Finally, this is all moot, because ultimately votes cannot be bought. This point went unadressed. Essentially, you still get to cast your vote for whoever you want, no matter how much money that person recieved for their campaign. Ads, like was pointed out in the Catholic University Law Review paper, can certainly bring information to light, but ultimately that information only matters because those people support certain issues. Who cares if the only reason that candidate is on tv is because he recieved $5,000 from someone? If he supports what the people support, they'll vote for him. If he doesn't, they won't. It's really that simple. We don't have to fear the money. P3. No Mo' ProblemsMy opponent opens up with an irrelevant statement about the status of Congress. Yes, Congress is largely unresponsive at the moment, but Congress also isn't responsible for removing campaign finance regulation. The Supreme Court is. [7][8] EWhy? Because it's unconstitutional at its heart. You can't argue with the supreme court. .. . But Pro tries to, anyways. The Supreme Court has ruled several times in the past that "political money cannot be limited", and to do so would be a "violation of the first amendment. " They didn't say that "money" was free speech, but "political money". Pro can't both argue that money has a huge impact on elections and say that money shouldn't be protected as speech. Pro can tell us that the decisions are awful. I'm in agreement that the supreme court doesn't always make the right decision. [9] But we can't implement unconstitutional law. The plan is simply not feasible. In policy debate, we call this a "solvency" argument. The plan may be the best idea in the world (which it isn't, in this case) but you simply can't enact it because something would get in the way. In this case, the supreme court. The bottom line is this: Your right to donate to a candidate is protected by the first amendment because that's a way for you to express yourself. Sure, some people may talk louder, and the supreme court knows that. But that's the beauty of our electoral system. It's not about how loud you can talk. It's about what you say. Whether your a candidate supporting certain issues, or your a person casting your ballot, it's about quality, not quantity. Everyone gets one vote, and no one can take your vote from you. It's yours. You don't have to fear the money. The resolution has been negated. I'm looking forward to your response, Pro. Sources[1] . http://sites.duke.edu...[2] . http://www.senate.gov...[3] . http://en.wikipedia.org...(United_States,_1912)[4] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[5] . http://www.virginialawreview.org...(1).pdf[6] . http://themonkeycage.org...[7] . http://www.nytimes.com...[8] . http://www.law.columbia.edu...[9] . http://dailycaller.com...