Forum Post: The Single Biggest Issue: Campaign Finance Reform

There's one pressing issue at the root of all the corruption and growing inequality - the way our government elects its representatives. Wealth and power has far too great of an influence on the political process; America is supposed to be a government OF the people, BY the people FOR the people. But right now, people don't hold power - money does. If we can just get back to a reasonable process of electing our representatives we will see the power shift back to whoever can convince the most hearts and minds that they have the best policy. No more character attacks, no more sound-bite based politics, no more kowtowing to big corporate donors. Right now it's not "One Person, One Vote", it's "One Dollar, One Vote". The more money you have, the more free speech you have - and it's warping our political system, entrenching power in the hands of the few and disenfranchising the rest of us.

Here are a couple suggestions for what we ought to be calling for:

1. Eliminate all political advertising on television and the radio. None. This both avoids the problem of the Supreme Court and will severly curtail the ability of those with wealth to exert their influence. Plus, the media has the disturbing effect of promoting shallow debate and sound-bite politicians, when what we need is depth and carefully considered policy options. As a bonus, this sidesteps the Supreme Court's troubling ruling in Citizens United (making it irrelevant).

2. Enforce hard caps on campaign spending, and make them relatively low. Think of this like sports - The game isn't served very well when the Yankees get to spend all the money they can throw at it and the TB Rays are stuck with a payroll a fraction of the size. Cap the spending and you'll see the substance of a candidate's arguments trump the size of their wallets, and perhaps a relevant third party candidate again.

These are just a couple of suggestions: please post your own in the comments. But regardless of how we might end up solving the problem, Occupy Wall Street should make it a point to call for these reforms as part of our demands.

Let's get back to "One Person, One Vote" again.