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Kevin Frazier (May 2 in the BDN) made the point that this country’s Founders expected constitutional amendments. He also notes that “corporate growth fuels immense income inequality.” This is of particular concern, given the Supreme Court’s decisions that “money is speech” (1976), that “corporations are people” (1978), and most recently that there should be “no limits on election funding” (2010).
Since those decisions, inflation-corrected election funding has doubled and doubled again from 1990 to 2020 (Open Secrets data). The reality for members of Congress is that you’d better spend about four hours per day fundraising for your next election. In fact, elected House members raised an average of $2.7 million, while winning senators, on average, raised $20.2 million in the 2020 election. The result? I believe members of Congress are beholden to the wishes of their largest donors — a kind of allowable bribery by and for the wealthiest.
That is a good reason for an amendment that would allow both Congress and states to set reasonable limits on campaign spending in elections. It is being proposed as the 28th Amendment by American Promise, and has gained bipartisan support not only in Maine but across the country.
Peter Garrett
Winslow
