Campaign Finance Reform - Do the Actions Match the Words?

By Paul McConnell

Campaign Finance Reform will bring democracy back to the people and out of the hands of rich individuals, corporations, and other special interest groups. Campaign Finance Reform is a step in:

· Uncorrupting the political process.

· Promoting public policy that is for the good of all people, not just special interest groups.

· Re-invigorating the average person, and in particular young people, to become active in the political process.

· Uncorrupting the political process

· Promoting public policy that is for the good of all people, not just special interest groups

· Re-invigorating the average person, and in particular young people, to become active in the political process

In particular, Campaign Finance Reform bans soft money. "Soft money" refers to the unregulated and unlimited donations from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals to the political parties, which in turn spend this money on behalf of federal candidates. Russ Feingold characterizes soft money as "a system of legalized bribery and legalized extortion."

As John McCain stated, "The people with money are sitting in the front of the room in Congress with a megaphone, and those average Americans who do not have the big money are sitting in the back whispering. That's not what our founding fathers had in mind."

Russ Feingold explained what got us to this point in the political process. "So how did this happen? Well, a loophole was created and then it was exploited, unfortunately, in the 1996 election by my candidate, President Clinton, and by Senator McCain's candidate, Bob Dole, who finally for the first time realized they could use these unlimited contributions, soft money contributions, to pay for political ads. It should have never been allowed. I don't think it's even legal now, but the problem is that the system has exploded. And now you have standard procedure#politicians calling up people and asking them for $100,000 contributions, $250,000, $500,000, or a million-dollar contribution, but it's only in the last few years. I can tell you, this has corrupted our political process."

During the 1992 federal election, the total amount of soft money spent was $83 million.. In the 1996 election, the figure increased to $231 million. In the last election, soft money contributions reached at least $457 million (the total is still being counted). "John and I want to remove that half-billion dollars worth of money from the process."

We the people need to speak loud and clear in support of Campaign Finance Reform. Campaign Finance Reform is about the future of our democracy.

Paul McConnell Candidate, US House of Representatives, California District 8 http://www.paulmcconnell2002.com