A couple of years ago the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission paved the way for corporation and union spending unlimited amounts of money on campaign finance. On Wednesday the Supreme Court moved further to strike down the overall limit on how much citizens can give political candidates or parties in the case McCutcheon v. FEC. 

The current limit on how much one person may contribute to all federal candidates, parties and PACs is $123,200. Without this limit, one wealthy donor would be permitted to donate more than $3.5 million to a single party’s candidates and party committees (plus a virtually unlimited amount to supportive PACs), according to a report by Demos, a left-wing public policy organization in Washington, D.C.

Monetary contributions to political campaigns are protected by the First Amendment. But elections are not charities. People donate money to candidates’ campaigns not purely because they want to help candidates, but because they demand certain regulation, policy or legislation in their favor once their candidates are elected. Furthermore, the amount of money a person or an organization donates to a candidate is telling of the candidate’s intent, but this information is not always public

The more money one donates, the more likely that the donor has higher incentive to influence politics through the candidates he or she supports. 

In response to the changes, disclosure of donors’ information may help curb the power of money playing in elections. Though money has an influential role in election cycle, candidates still have to attract voters to cast their votes for them. Once the information of donors is accessible to the general public, people are able to see who pours unusual amounts of money into a single candidate. This monetary connection between donors and candidates might imply certain political schemes if a candidate is elected. Thus a mandatory law that requires candidates to reveal donors’ information should be up to the agenda in Capitol Hill.  

According to The Washington Post, the ruling could bring very limited transparency to the role of big donors, whose contributions giving to many outside groups are kept secret but whose checks to candidate and party committees must be reported to the FEC and publicly disclosed.  However, there is no law to mandate that candidates disclose information for all sources of campaign finance and donors’ names. 

Following the ruling, conservatives and liberals have been extremely divided on the subsequent impact on the upcoming decade election cycle. Conservatives championed that it was a victory for freedom of speech. As Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in the ruling, the overall donation ceiling is an unconstitutional infringement on free speech because the government can regulate political giving only in order to prevent “quid pro quo corruption,” which is something like direct bribery. Justice Roberts’ argument is partially right in a sense that ceiling on contribution is an infringement on a person’s right to be involved in politics. But if donating money is seen as a way of freedom of speech, why should donors’ information be kept secret?  Ask the analogous questions to journalists—should their names be kept anonymous when their articles are published? When people exercise the right to free speech, they are also held responsible for what they say. 

Major media outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have published editorials to call Congress to place tougher rules to prevent cash from flowing in politics. But one doubts that progress would be achieved. Congressmen are indeed in a conflict of interest acting against unlimited campaign finance because they are the ones who have received millions of dollars from wealthy donors and thus got elected. How do the media expect them to act against their own interests? Now the floodgate is open, and they might do even more in favor of their donors. 

Congress is still the only hope to narrow or close the floodgate but not in the hope of Congressmen. Media outlets should raise the awareness of the issue to the general public and ask voters to pressure to their representatives to change the rules.

Send your thoughts to Ziyi at technician-viewpoint@ncsu.edu.