Saturday, January 23, 2010

Make Them Stop

An interesting side effect of the Supreme Court ruling this week about campaign finance: a lot of corporations are pleading with Congress to pass public financing so that Congress won’t be hitting them up for money.

Roughly 40 executives from companies including Playboy Enterprises, ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, the Seagram’s liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines and Men’s Wearhouse sent a letter to congressional leaders Friday urging them to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers — and fear it will only get worse after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.

[…]

“Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors,” the business executives’ letter says. “And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court’s decision, the fundraising pressure on members of Congress will only increase.”

It sounds like a case of the corporations wanting to be the ones to decide who they’re going to buy.