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U.S. GOVERNMENT 1: The Fate of Soft Money

Every year, the United States Supreme Court takes a few months off in the summer--a period of time which is called the summer recess. However, even though the summer recess is still going on, the Supreme Court decided to come back this past week to hear one important case. The issue that the judges on the Supreme Court met to discuss is called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. The purpose of the Bipartisan Reform Act is to change the way that political campaigns are run. When a person is trying to get elected in the United States, to be the President, or a senator, for example, they need a lot of money. Money is given to the candidates by people who want them to win the election, because when you have more money, you can hire more people to help you win the election, and you can have more advertising.

Sometimes when a politician is running for election, he or she is given very large amounts of money by individual companies. These companies and labor unions often give money to a candidate because they think that if the candidate wins, it will help their business. This type of money that candidates are given is called "soft money". Many people think that it is unfair for such large amounts of money to be given to candidates, because may give companies too much power over politicians. In other words, many people believe that soft money is a type of bribery for favors if the politician gets elected.

The Supreme Court met for the first day of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act hearing on Monday September 8th. The Supreme Court has made a decision on the case yet, but when they do, it will decide whether or not soft money will still be allowed in elections. However, the reason that this is such an important case is that the Supreme Court almost never comes back from summer recess in order to hear a case. In fact, the last time that the Supreme Court came back early from summer recess was over 25 years ago in 1974.

--Written by Angela Schutte

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