Over the past semester and again last week, we have discussed the influence of money on political campaigns. Not only do the elected candidates attempt to fulfill the expectations of the people who gave them money, but they also spend too much time campaigning for the next election while they are in office. This leads to an increasing polarization and thus contributes to gridlock. Until now, we were quite clear about the nature of the donators: they were people external to the government.
In an article published today by the New York Times, it appears that the law preventing federal contractors to finance political campaigns or parties has been broken by Mitt Romney's Super PAC "Restore Our Future" that accepted 3 donations from federal contractors. The law was originally drafted to prevent "companies from using political donations to bribe their way to a lucrative
federal contract, and lawmakers from extorting money from companies that
wished to do business with the government."
If they are not punished, these practices might take even more time to our elected officials...Is it another path towards gridlock?
A blog and event series led by Professors David Schanzer and Don Taylor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy
Interesting - hard to believe that even this Supreme Court would find that the government does not have a compelling interest in preventing those who do business with the government from using its corporate funds to influence campaigns for public office.
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