INTRODUCTION
Campaign finance reform has not managed either to promote political equality or prevent corruption. Even worse, in order to enhance the relative voice of others, the government decides to set donation limitation—restrict the speech of some elements. It is nothing else but to sacrifice people’s right to pursue an alleged political equality and preventing corruption, thus, it raises an ethical problem that restriction on campaign finance is fail of right.
When looking into literatures of campaign finance reform, the debate of rights often based on the free speech protected by the First Amendment. People neglected that the free express of political petition is also a basic right acknowledged by the Universal Declaration of Human rights. Thus, I will examine this argument in the article from a broad to narrow scope.
This article will analyze the campaign finance regulation’s failure from a right perspective. The article will demonstrate that some moral theorists divide rights into positive and negative categories which create distinctive correlative duties. This article will argue that the present restriction is actually infringe people’s rights and goes against with Universal Declaration of Human rights and the First Amendment. Moreover, the compel disclosure of donor’s information violates people’ s right to privacy, thus, such an act by government may be over regulated.
Part 1 of this article will introduce a brief history of how the United States campaign finance reform moves at several significant points and cases.
Part 2 will introduce the definition of a right from various moral and legal perspectives.
Part 3 will examine the failure of right from the universal basic right narrow down to the United States’ free speech and right to privacy.
Finally, Part 4 will conclude by outlining the
