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Andrew Brown Politics and Government 101 Analytical essay “The Bill That Wasn’t: The Failure of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001” “Passing campaign finance reform will help restore public confidence in our government and boost our nation's disturbingly low rate of voter turnout in national elections," says Jim Jeffords, a Democrat from Vermont. Jeffords along with many other Republicans believes that some sort of campaign finance reform will help, but will the current proposal pass? To be able to be put into use and have the United States electoral process benefit, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001 must first be passed, and that just may prove to be a task that is too much for the bill to handle. There are many steps that the bill must take and encounter many groups. The aspects that will have a role in the final fate of the Act are Congress, party organization, interest groups, and unorganized interests. Due to irreconcilable differences in Congress, and various other problems within the parties, and with other interests, no part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001 will actually become a law. Most of the members of Congress do believe that some sort of reform is needed. The actual reform is a debatable subject. Democrats feel that some things need to happen and Republicans believe in other changes. One might ask why reform is needed for campaign finance, that question is easily answered. The nation has many perceived and arguably true ideas of problems dealing with campaign finance. One such problem is corruption. The idea of vote buying, and other such corruptions are popular ideas among voters and politicians. Another perceived problem is that money runs the entire electoral process, you have to have money to win an election, and you have to have money even to run. Another large problem that is perceived is the idea that at the presidential level, appointments and committee choices are all based on the outcome of the election. Congress and its many members have various differences on how campaign finance should be reformed. The Democratic Party strongly supports the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform proposal. They feel that the important legislation would improve their current campaign finance system by dramatically reducing the influence of money on their political process.
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