ear, huge sums of money are donated to political parties by unions despite the Supreme Court ruling and the Taft-Hartley law.The Watergate law of 1974 prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to a campaign. The only contributions that can be accepted from anyone outside of the United States are those from someone who is a legal United States resident and must have earned that money in the United States. Ex-President Clinton came under scrutiny from the media for accepting a large donation from an Indonesian banker in 1996. The Democratic Party later returned the $425,000 donation, along with another $260,000 donation from a South Korean company (Keena 6). But still, even after this was uncovered, Clinton was given no reprimand for his actions. If people are ever going to trust in our government again, Washington must take a stand again corruption like this. In a poll taken last year, the confidence in our government today was the lowest since the Nixon administration. That is a scary statistic, and steps must be taken soon to change that. Campaign finance reform should be the first step. If better ways are established to run for an office, and raising huge amounts of soft money from corporations, unions, and foreign nationals is not needed, then the government can once again work for the people instead of the wealthy and powerful. According to Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, The twin loopholes of soft money and bogus issue ads have virtually obliterated out campaign finance laws, leaving us with little more that a pile of legal rubble (3). It is up to the current elected officials to change that, for the nation is in need of campaign finance reform more now than ever....
