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Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Jimmy Carter: U.S. Campaign Finance System Is 'Legalized Bribery'

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is pessimistic about the current state of our democracy. Chastising the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, Carter says that elections have become “legalized bribery.”

During an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s “Today,” 91-year-old Carter reflected on how campaign finance has changed since he ran for president.

“I didn’t have any money,” Carter said, according to The Guardian. “Now there is a massive infusion of millions of dollars into campaigns for all the candidates. Some candidates like Trump can put in his own money but others have to be able to raise, let's say $100 million to $200 million just to get the Republican or Democratic nomination. That’s the biggest change in America.”

Carter on Citizens United, which lifted caps on how much private interests could spend on election contribution through Super PACs:

The erroneous ruling of the supreme court, where millionaires, billionaires, can put in unlimited amounts of money, give legal bribery the chance to prevail, because all the candidates, whether they are honest or not, or whether they are Democratic or Republican, depend on these massive infusions of money from very rich people in order to have money to campaign.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agree with Jimmy on this one. That's twice in one week. The other being that Trump would be better than Cruz.

Anonymous said...

The SC is one of the biggest terrorist organizations this country is living with today. These favor owing judges are even more out of touch with the common citizen than the balance of our federal government is. We aren't in their minds as they rule, the literal word of our Constitution isn't in their minds as they rule., their secondary paycheck is.

Anonymous said...

Of course it is.