What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.
What people fail to appreciate is that the currency of corruption in elective office is, not money, but votes.
As a consequence, the Court ruled that the limits on campaign spending violated the First Amendment, but it accepted the $1,000 limit on individual contributions on the ground that the need to avoid the appearance of corruption justified this limited constraint on speech.
The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions.
This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories