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| Yes | 84% | 376 votes | Total: 447 votes | |
| No | 16% | 71 votes |
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Add to FavoritesOf course they do. If they didn't, there wouldn't be any campaign contributions in the first place, especially from the heavy interests in business, defense industry and others who regularly buy Congressional votes. Not all politicians in office are on the take, but too frequently the news exposes a glaring example.
The most recent features suspected bribery taker Congressman William Jefferson (D., La.) trying to explain the $90,000 found in his freezer. This may be shameful, but certainly not surprising. Throughout history, there have been an old-boys' network operating among Washington lobbyists and legislators. Members of the House of Representatives must run for re-election every two years; Senators every six years.
Today a Presidential candidate must raise many millions for a campaign, and it takes at least from $250,000 to several million to finance a Congressional campaign. Does anyone really believe that all campaign gift money comes from selfless patriots whose only altruistic motive is to bring competent, honest government to Washington?
As for Jefferson, where is a poor young attorney from Louisiana going to get enough campaign money every 24 short months to fight to stay in office? There are laws in place now that limit the amount of money any individual can contribute to a political campaign, but those rules apply only to money contributed legally. They don't cover gifts of cold cash that get secretly deposited in a freezer.
Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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No
No. People are giving contributions because they believe in the same issues the Congressmen-Represen tatives claim to believe in or else they would not be giving them any contributions at all.
Many get small donations that add up to a lot of money and every person who sends them money is expecting them to stand firm on the issues they way they said they would. If they don't stand true to their platform then the next time around these congressmen will not receive any money for their campaign expenses from the people they disappointed.
The contributions are not really buying votes they are just supporting someone who believes in what they do and people expect to receive what they were promised.
It is the same way when we pay for electricity and/or gas we expect it to be delivered as promised. When we order something from a catalog we also expect to get what we paid for or we will either send it back or never use that brand again.
Hopefully people will realize that when voting, if our Representatives don't deliver what they promise then we should not vote them in again and that goes for the Representatives who have been in office forever.
We should demand laws be put into effect wherein a Senator or Congressman cannot hold office more than two terms. What we have done is make them like dictators who stay in office for 20/40 years, doing nothing but causing trouble and debating issues over and over again. The way we only have a President, Mayor and/or Governor for two terms we should only have Senators and Congressmen for two terms. Perhaps then things will get done instead of them arguing on issues for twenty years before they get anything resolved. Think about it, the medical reform, social security and gun issues have gone back and forth for years, nothing gets accomplished yet they receive their salaries for years to accomplish nothing. How many of us would be kept at a job if all we did was debate and get nothing accomplished. i.e. Imaging if every day our Department of Sanitations Workers debated who was going to drive the truck, who was going to pick up the paper, garbage or recyclables on any given day. We would be overloaded with garbage, vermin and confusion, sound like some days in Congress, doesn't it?
Yet they are taking "In God We Trust" off our money when eighty-six [86%] percent of the population believes in God and wants it kept there.
So no, contributions don't buy votes, they seem to keep fooling us day after day. If I see that any party is not delivering what they promised for my donation, I then change the name on the check and send to the organization I believe will work the hardest for what I believe in.
Of course many of our representatives don't even need our money and that is why it is good to have a limit on how much a corporation can give to anyone.
Learn more about this author, Frances Ruocco.
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