opinion

LETTER: All candidates should support 28th Amendment

William Cunningham, a candidate for Congress for the 2nd District, just signed a pledge to work for campaign finance reform. He is the first candidate in the race to sign the pledge. Members of Allied for the American Promise are requesting meetings with all the candidates to ask them to sign on.

In 2010, the Supreme Court made a grave mistake concluding that money is equivalent to speech in electoral campaigns. Americans use our First Amendment right to speech as citizens of our republic. Speech is an instrument of self-governance; money is an economic instrument. Somehow the Supreme Court got confused, and a constitutional amendment is needed to clarify that money really is not speech.

Mr. Cunningham has pledged to work for a 28th Amendment to: 1) secure fair, free elections by limiting the undue influence of money in politics; 2) protect the rights of all Americans to equal participation and representation, rather than over-representation of donors and special interests; and 3) protect the unalienable liberty of people rather than new privileges for the largest corporations, unions, and special interests.

Ask candidates seeking your vote what they will do about campaign spending run amok. The 2018 election would be different if all candidates took the pledge. Let's work for nothing less.

Shoshana Osofsky

Bridgeton