To go in a somewhat different direction, a friend suggested this change to help clean up politics (don't know if it was an original idea):
'Only entities which can vote in an election can contribute to said election.'
Think about this for a second, Exxon could not contribute to campaigns. They could send lobbyists and such, but those people couldn't write checks so where would their influence come from.
The NEA could not contribute either. The NRA, The AARP, Phizer. The CEO of Merck could contribute to the presidential election, but not to the house/senate races outside his state.
Merck give give people money and ask them to contribute to campaigns, but only after they paid taxes on it
Organizations could run their own political ads and could 'get out the vote', but they couldn't quietly send million dollar checks to every politician in the country.
Think about how radically this one rule would alter our landscape (never mind for a moment that it would never pass, just let that slip by).
That is one of the most sensible ideas I've heard in a long time.
Alas.... The Supreme Court has ruled on this very matter.
Campaign contributions are First-Amendment-protected "political speech".
apparently under the theory that "money talks".
