Another perverse effect of Citizens United

Reader comment on: Fundraiser In Chief

Submitted by ben (United States), Mar 8, 2012 08:14

Here is another effect of Citizens United. In order to raise money to compete with the Koch Brothers, Adelson and Romney's buddies, one has to step up the fundraising, spending less time on doing one's job. This will undoubtedly be true at all levels of government with more pernicious effects. It is only a matter of time before candidates lower down cannot run for office without either being independently wealthy, or having a "sponsor" who can bankroll them. This is gross. Time for an amendment to the Constitution.

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The Future of Capitalism replies:

Or perhaps it is an effect of McCain-Feingold's ban on large "soft money" contributions to the political parties. Limit the size of contributions, as the campaign finance reformers did, and you need to have more fundraising events to raise the same amount of money as before. Unintended consequences!

I'm also not sure that having lots of fundraisers is necessarily a bad thing. It could mean more citizen participation/engagement in the political process, which could be a good thing. Also, whatever time the president spends fundraising is time he can't spend on dreaming up overhauls of vast sectors of the private economy, regulating hands-free cellphones, etc. So it might be for the best.

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