No big surprise, but it does have a big impact on Democracy:
95 percent of the largest contributors in the state are white. Their contributions amounted to 97 percent of the $4.4 million given. Two-thirds of North Carolina’s biggest donors are male. Of the institute’s Top 10 list, eight are Republicans and two are Democrats.
While groups like the Institute for Southern Studies push for election financing reforms to counter the disproportionate impact of special interest money, the prevailing argument is that that spending money on a candidate or cause is a fundamental right – it is encapsulated in the nation’s protection of free speech.
And therein lies the problem. The Anti-Federalists wanted to curb the powers of the government, not so much to avoid totalitarianism, but to keep the government from reestablishing a class system such as existed under Crown rule. The Bill of Rights was the great "equalizer," and was never meant to give the wealthy undue influence over lawmaking. But their constant and sometimes clever argument of "money=speech" has chipped away at the foundations of equality, leaving us with a Democracy in name only.
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