Each election candidates raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for their campaigns. So much money in fact that Supreme Court cases are needed to set regulations on how candidates can acquire funds. In 2002, President Bush passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act which set regulations on financing political campaigns, including the increase of soft money to the political party as a whole and of issue advocacy ads. In Minnesota, the dispute among how candidates may accept funds is also an issue.
Prior to the November 2nd elections, a federal judge in Minnesota ruled in favor of corporations disclosing campaign finances. In other words, sources of contributions must be released if the amount exceeds the company's general treasury revenue. Even before this decision, however, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill requiring candidate spending reports from corporations and unions. For quite some time corporations in Minnesota were not able to use revenue to help a candidate's campaign, but this turned out to be an intrusion of free speech. It seems to be that the only ones opposed to the law are those affiliated with the big businesses. Minnesota's Attorney General, Lori Swanson, stated, "An informed electorate is the cornerstone of our democracy. This ruling lets average voters know who is financing elections in Minnesota". Is it really such a horrible idea to know where all this money is coming from?
The people have spoken, the votes have been tallied, and new leaders have been chosen. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of US citizens flocked to the polls to vote. In Minnesota's third district a total of 274,093 votes were cast distributing among Erik Paulsen and Jim Meffert, as well as the Independent candidate and write in votes. Not surprisingly, the Republican incumbent, Erik Paulsen, won the House seat once again. However, Paulsen did not beat out the DFL candidate, Jim Meffert, by the large margin that most had expected. Paulsen took 161,178 votes while Meffert was not significantly behind with 100,240 votes. According to the earlier election forecasts one would have thought Paulsen to win the election by many more votes.
Undoubtedly, Jim Meffert put up a substantial fight against the Republican Erik Paulsen within the midst of a poor Democratic performance. The national outcome resulted in Democrats taking 189 House seats, while the Republicans increased their representation to 239 seats, a gain of more than sixty seats in the House! Such an upheaval has not occurred for over the past decade. Subsequently, this shift of political control in Congress is most likely going to lead to complications among the Democratic President and the Republican majority House.
