In the United States, money is the root of all politics. You simply can't get elected without either being an independent millionaire (think Michael Bloomberg) or kowtowing to moneyed special interests. The latter is much more likely, and once they have you they don't let go: You're in their debt. Like adolescents, would-be rebellious politicians are kept in line by the paternalistic discipline of their corporate and organized-labor taskmasters. "As long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules!"
In 2002, Congress attempted to address the problem by passing the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (aka the "McCain-Feingold" Act), with the stated intent of banning "soft money" contributions made directly to candidate and party organizations and ending the undue influence that wealthy special interests exercised on political campaigns. However, eight years later, studies show that contributions from these interests have actually increased, due in large part to the omnipresent ability of private lawyers to remain one step ahead of their federal regulators. The donations have also grown more strictly divided along party lines, further fueling the ever-broadening partisan rift that has become the defining characteristic of contemporary American politics.
While well-intentioned, the BCFRA was doomed to fail on account of the legal fiction, carved out over nearly forty years of jurisprudence, that campaign contributions are a constitutionally protected form of free speech, a problem further exacerbated by the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision. Although the idea that money equals speech is a paradigmatic American notion (after all, money speaks for itself), another American ideal, equality, is tossed to the wind. After all, speech is hardly equal when one speaker whispers in the valleys while the other bellows from the mountaintops. And even the First Amendment has an exception for speech that is "obscene" and without any socially redeeming value. Is having our elections, and the decisions the victor makes over the next several years, decided by what is essentially an oligarchy really that different?
The solution is to require public funding for all federal elections (the Fair Elections Now Act, a bipartisan bill currently pending in the House of Representatives, also champions this approach). The cost could be covered by a mere $3-$5 check-off on one's annual income tax (equaling about .0001% of the pretax income for an individual making $30,000). This seems a fair price for fair elections, and although politicians would still be on the cuff of their campaign donors, those donors would be the American taxpayers rather than Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, or the American Federation of Teachers. Moreover, while corporations and wealthy individuals would still be able to provide independent support for a political candidate, the restriction on direct contributions would greatly limit the leverage those donors, who do not represent the majority of Americans, would have over the candidate once he or she took office. Ideally, elections would be won or lost based on the candidates' relative substantive stands on the issues. While not a be-all-and-end-all, public financing would be a step in the right direction.
Perhaps there is a better method of curtailing the power that special interests have over elected officials than public funding, and I'd be curious to hear readers' thoughts on the issue. Nevertheless, the truth is that until we address the lingering problem of campaign finance, change in other important areas (education, energy policy, immigration, defense spending) will continue to be hamstrung by the donors whose interests are best served by the current status quo, and our efforts to move forward on those fronts will ultimately prove futile. We will merely be treating the symptoms, rather than curing the disease.