Money in politics is always what screws up Washington in terms of their listening to us the public. Small interest groups such as AIPAC influences the Congress in the way that benefit them but not us. Companies pass laws for their profit but not for the employees.
Lawmakers, however, want money, and esp. from large corporations. There is this controversial Supreme Court case called "Citizens United", which allows super PAC's unlimited amount of money to donate to any candidate without revealing their source. The decision was made right before the President Obama's reelection. The end results of this is that the last Presidential election cost some billions of dollars.
There was a candidate in Ohio that challenged the notion of corporate funding. The yet unknown candidate campaigned without spending much money in the usual big campaign offices and hoard of paid campaigners nor strategists. His start was modest; but the opponent was attacked by his comments on his preference over names. The ill-fated comment cost his primary; now he won the primary and made officially the Democratic candidate for the district. He fought and fought relying on private donation money, refusing donations from corporations and PACs. His unsuccessful race seemed to have affected the Democratic party's decision on allowing PAC's money in the President's reelection campaign.
Now that the corporations and PAC's can legally donate money for any candidate and can do so without revealing their name, the lawmakers now can ignore all the small donors and go right ahead with getting the large sum of money for their campaigns. Consequently, the Congress cease to function, or almost. The business perspective of their political campaign simply ends with getting the money from the large donors. They talk of issues that are of concern of theirs but fall short of getting things done since there is no large outcry from the public for pressing such issues. Why should they talk of something sure to be vetoed by the President anyway if not for the appeasement for the large donors? Plutocracy fails before the majority for its lack of ideas or its failure to listen to people's opinions.
The money in Washington cost us tax dollars for such donors and resulted in dysfunctional Congress. We are still paying billions of dollars to oil companies as subsidies. The tax heavens are still there. The high cost of running elections prevented many young people and minorities from the office, regardless of their capabilities nor popularity. How do people look at the lawmakers in the Congress applauding -- standing ovations -- for the uninvited Israeli Prime Minister's speech? Money can buy lawmakers in Washington.
As that the campaign cost even more than ever before, the Internet has brought change to how campaigns are run. The virtual campaign is virtually free of charge. A Youtube hit can sell the campaign message throughout the world. Emails can reach people without postage. Let us hope we can hope for less dominance of corporate money and large donors now that we are connected by the social media, and are able to freely exchange ideas and opinions.