Some people will always have an easier time of being heard than others. This is just about making sure that people can't directly buy their way to an easier time of being heard, buy buying off people in the government directly. They will instead have to be heard in a public forum, where public debate can occur.
1. Too much is controlled at the federal level. 2. The government has significantly overreached in its authority.
So what's your solution? When was the last time a president or congress made the government smaller? Is it possible for this to happen when monied interests can buy the ear of a congressman and get a great return on their investment because the government is so large and powerful?
The natural counterforce to corrupting influences, all of them rather than just campaign finance, is robust citizen accountability. Clearly this accountability has left something to be desired to date. I would argue this has largely to do with rational ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance) on behalf of voters, that they, having so much to do, aren't willing to wade through the maze of political discourse in order to really know who is worth voting for.
But what if it was dead-simple to know where your rep stood, on every issue, not just the obvious ones, and on every level, not just congress?
I'd argue that you could convert a substantial number who currently don't vote, or else default to simple heuristics in deciding who to vote for: e.g. party or incumbency.
To that end, I've started a site: http://votereports.org which aims to be something like the github of political accountability. A simple, decentralized group of folks generating, exchanging and refining politician report cards based on objective criteria such as votes.
The project is just 2 months old, and there's plenty to do, but it should be ready well before November.
For better governance, I'd stake my bet on this before I would on a constitutional amendment or change of heart for politicians. After all:
> "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson
Why can't people buy their way to be being hear, if I own a newspaper can I write editorials about the candidates and issues? If so, why do we only allow the extremely wealthy to do that? You're disenfranchising people who have some money, but not enough to own media from being able to be heard. How is buying advertising not a public forum?
Do you have problems with PACs?
If we can't trust our politicians to make small changes to reduce their power, how the hell can you trust them to make fundamental changes to the system?
Your argument was simply that money is speech, as if it's a tautology. I didn't feel like going through a long, detailed refutation if that's the level of effort you were going to put in.
The whole thing about money being speech is not because money actually is speech. The issue is that putting restrictions on how people spend their money can unconstitutionally limit their freedom of speech, or of the press. For instance, if you say that they can speak all they want, but can't spend more than $10 on printing costs, then you've limited their freedom of the press. So, the court can strike down laws about spending money in elections if it unduly restricts people's freedom of speech and of the press.
That doesn't mean that all money is speech. Money is trade, commerce; and the Constitution explicitly allows Congress to pass laws relating to interstate commerce (which the court has since broadened to pretty much all commerce or economic activity, even within a single state, as it can affect interstate prices, which I think is somewhat dubious, but that's the precedent we've got).
So, it's the tension between these two issues is where we have the debate. Money isn't speech, but because money can be used to buy almost anything, including a forum for your speech, it's hard to block money without also blocking speech.
I think that we can do considerably better than what we are doing, however. Paying money directly to a candidate or campaign goes beyond simple speech; that could be construed as bribery. With appropriate limits on campaign contributions, you can reduce the disparity, and make it so that everyone (or almost everyone) can afford the same impact on the campaign, though I still find it a little bit dubious.
But beyond campaign contributions, it's hard to determine where to draw the line. It's very easy to write laws which do unjustly forbid certain kinds of political speech. It's also very easy to turn from a democracy into a plutocracy by simply allowing money to buy everything that actually matters in government. I don't know what the right solution is, but I suspect that reducing the financial incentives for congressional staffers and congressmen to act in the interests of those with money will help to get changes in the government that the public actually wants.
I agree about the problem of bribing politicians and agree that direct donation/payments should be reported and controlled. This is a restriction on the candidate not on the individual or corporation, the candidates campaign cannot accept the funds.
I believe a person or a corporation should be able to spend their money in anyway they see fit and advertise anything they want to.
I've stated before in other comments that they way to remove corruption is to remove the incentive for corruption -- reduce the amount of money controlled by congress and the scope of it's control (to prevent regulatory capture). The easiest way to do this is to support action at the state level and only at the federal level for truly national/interstate things. For instance, federal pollution controls only apply to pollution that crosses state lines. This way lobbying is less effective since the amount of effort vs payoff is reduced.
We also need to stop trying ram through legislation whenever a given party is in power. Instead they should seek consensus and if none can be found do nothing.
Some people will always have an easier time of being heard than others. This is just about making sure that people can't directly buy their way to an easier time of being heard, buy buying off people in the government directly. They will instead have to be heard in a public forum, where public debate can occur.
1. Too much is controlled at the federal level. 2. The government has significantly overreached in its authority.
So what's your solution? When was the last time a president or congress made the government smaller? Is it possible for this to happen when monied interests can buy the ear of a congressman and get a great return on their investment because the government is so large and powerful?