Hillary Clinton, a prodigious campaign fundraiser, described the U.S. political system as “dysfunctional” in her first appearance as a 2016 presidential candidate and said she would favor a constitutional amendment to purge campaigns of what she called “unaccountable money.”
Hillary Clinton Vows Campaign-Finance Fix - WSJ
But a constitutional amendment is a terrible way to try to fix the problem. To begin with, to the extent Clinton is concerned simply about undisclosed political money, she should put efforts into fixing the nation’s disclosure laws, something that requires congressional legislation or action from the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission. There is no need for a constitutional amendment to fix our disclosure laws. Indeed, say what you want about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, but in its decision the court did offer a ringing endorsement of disclosure laws as constitutionally permissible and even desirable.
At a campaign appearance Tuesday, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton called for cracking down on “unaccountable” money in the political system, even if it required amending the Constitution. Mrs. Clinton’s own record in that regard is not spotless. For example, Norman Hsu, a bundler for her Senate and presidential campaigns, raised $45,000 for her from a California family whose patriarch, a mailman, earned $49,000 a year, and whose matriarch was a homemaker. And Sant Chatwal, a hotel magnate based in New York City, made more than $180,000 in illegal donations, some to Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, then pressured a witness to lie to federal investigators. But still, it's always useful for politicians to raise the problem of runaway money in politics.
Citizens United is a revolving door problem - Sunlight Foundation Blog
