Sunshine State News reporter Ken Ward interviews Policy Director Bob Sanchez regarding campaign finance laws:”Americans should be free to spend their own money for any legal purpose, whether it be aiding their favorite charities or by supporting (or opposing) various political candidates and causes. Arbitrarily limiting political contributions imposes a limit on free speech, which is supposed to be protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.As a general rule, such limitations also give incumbents an unfair advantage over challengers in elections wherein name recognition is increasingly an important determinative factor, and – let’s face it — some elected officials shamelessly use government resources for self-promotion.Meanwhile, by encouraging special interests to seek creative methods of circumventing the limits on campaign contributions, those limits may paradoxically defeat the announced goals of the self-proclaimed ‘good government groups’ such as Common Cause, which seek to minimize the role of money in politics.That, in turn, helps to maximize the clout of favored groups such as labor unions, which can and do inject their manpower and their in-kind resources into election campaigns.They have every right to do so, of course, but they have no right to impose disadvantages on those for whom a monetary contribution – derived, after all, from the fruits of their labor – is a more practical way to participate in the electoral process.As for the role of money in political campaigns, a solution far better than arbitrary limits is to require the complete and timely disclosure and on-line posting of the true source of all contributions — prior to the start of voting — so that interested voters may see who’s supporting whom and judge for themselves.”
