THE
BIG
IMPACT
THE
SOLUTIONS
The American Anti-Corruption Act is an act to prevent further corruption from city to city and state to state. They have proposed to give each voter $100 ever election cycle, and they can invest in any politician they want. Everyone gets an equal amount of money which will allow the election process to be fair. This Act hopes to stop political bribery so investors cannot donate to influence politicians. It also exposes people who are buying political power and who attempt to invest. This allows the elections to improve so the power is in the hands of the citizens. Citizens will have $7,500,000,000 to campaign fund in total.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
This Act has been supported all over the country. The Act was first passed in Princeton, New Jersey. From there more cities began to join and participate including Cambridge and Western, Massachusetts, Genoa, Illinois, Tallahassee, Florida, Ewing Township, New Jersey, Winnebago County, Illinois, DeKalb County, Illinois, Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, California, Roanoke Valley, Virginia, South Brunswick, New Jersey, Portland, Oregon, Miami-Dade County, Florida, Lawrence Township, New Jersey, Cocoa, Florida, Southfield, Michigan, Multnomah County, Oregon, Boone County, Illinois, McHenry Country, Illinois, and South Dakota as a whole state.
In order for this to continue spreading, you can get involved and go to the American Anti-Corruption Act website
(http://volunteer.represent.us/) and be apart of the next campaign to get your city or state to pass this Act.
Solution #2: American Anti-Corruption Act
According to Lawrence Lessig, a legal activist, the issue is that candidates spend countless amount of time fundraising from the smallest amount of funders of America. The solution would be to spend a less amount of time fundraising and get aid from the larger part of America; not the funders but the people. Spreading the funder influence will allow the people to learn their methods and will support their politicians the equitable way.
​
Only 1% of Americans contribute to 68% of election funding in total. In 2010, 0.26% of Americans gave $200 or more to a candidate in either both general and presidential elections. 0.01% of Americans gave $10,000 or more to any candidate. In 2012, 0.000042% of America which is 132 people, gave 60% of Super PAC money. This conveys that the people are not really involved in elections and should do more than just vote in the general election. They can start small dollar funded elections & citizen funded campaigns.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
This issue is solvable and if people believe it can be solved then it will eventually but it will take time. States that have accepted small dollar funded elections have seen changes rapidly. Connecticut accepted the system and in the first year 78% of the representatives didn’t accept large contributions anymore only small contributions and they were elected.
​
Bernie Sanders, the running candidate for the Democratic Party this year, worked using this system as well. He has refrained from the overuse of money and structured his entire campaign off of the corrupt influence that “wealthy donors” have on the candidates they support. He exposed the negative impact of money has on elections. He did not accept any donations from billionaires and only donations from the citizens. The average contribution was $27 and Sanders proved that there could be winning national campaigns without big funders.
Solution #1: Small Dollar Funded Elections & Citizen Funded Campaigns
The Supreme court is determining an answer to the question concerning the separation of politics from money, so that election progress and success of the candidates can be more fairly won. If the Supreme Court were to go with the decision to remove money from politics, they would reduce the amount of funding needed for advertisements and other things, that politicians who unfairly use money as their advantage.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
They are currently working with Congress, to limit the amount of money, so candidates from Republican and Democrats are able to receive from donors. They only want to limit, not completely remove because by removing donors, they could still secretly support and they understand that “wealthy and corporations will always have influence in the elections.” They are trying to see how separating money from election will change the way in which voters view the candidates and the way the campaigns are run and how the candidates gain support.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
In most Democratic Campaigns, the candidates have volunteers publicize them through volunteering this eliminates the need for money and allows candidates to see where real support is coming from. Support that is not based off the amount of funding you have and the unlimited number of advertisements bought with the money.
Solution #3: Reducing Amount of Funding
