Informative Article: Campaign finance bill to languish yet another year

This year, the Senate took up the issue of campaign finance for the fourth time since 2007, but it has again been pushed aside. The legislation that would make campaign finance more transparent, called S.20, will not be addressed again for at least another year thanks to it being turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Vermont Senate voted 19-9. The legislation would have put into place new limits on campaign contribution “for lawmakers and candidates for statewide office and created new disclosure standards for political contributors.” What actually created the doubt and eventually sent the legislation to the committee was the amendment that would have banned politicians from directly taking money from corporations. This bill did not emerge until April 2012, but was actually passed out of committee a year ago. Now we are set back at least another year. S.20 would have clarified state law as a result of a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision that brought down Vermont’s 1997 Vermont campaign finance law. Supporters of reforms in the Senate said “the existing system is an incumbent insurance policy and too much money is spent on elections”; those who opposed the bill said Vermont has fair and “clean” elections and that changing the system is unnecessary. This article provides the stated positions of various members of the Senate, and provides a clear illustration of the amount of money involved in donations to campaigns.

http://vtdigger.org/2012/05/02/campaign-finance-bill-to-languish-yet-another-year/