and it will continue to be, so long as political donations of any size are legal.
Donating directly to politicians is fairly straightforward and transparent due to campaign finance law, but PACs operating “independently” and in the background undermine the system in a huge way
Many countries use publicly funded elections where all candidates get a set sum from the government to use towards a campaign. This would stop the billions flowing into races and ensure that all candidates have the same campaign budget.
Look at Texas, for example. The annual salary for a state legislator is pitiful (like $10k), which basically prevents anyone who isn’t independently wealthy from running from state office.
As long as we have free speech, whomever can buy the largest megaphone has the ability to drown out everyone else. You have to regulate speech so that everyone gets an equal size megaphone, but then groups that most people want to drown out also gets to speak. You can try limiting it so only some groups get access, but then you just get regulatory capture of speech.
That may be true enough, but it's not a phenomenon we've been seeing. What we _have_ been seeing in the past few years, especially after _Citizen's United_ and the dawn of PACs, is wealthy corporations legally handing money to candidates to do their campaigning with.
This would and should have nothing to do with free speech, except that there have been recent (SC?) rulings declaring financial donations, i.e. money, to be a form of speech, so basically unlimited political donations are considered protected under the 1st Amendment. I personally consider this a grave error in judgment, undoubtedly politically motivated.
Well, you have to include the middle step that voters are strongly influenced by what they hear, advertising, and the like and that many voters do not do a deep amount of digging. Also you have to include the other step that there is a lot of research in marketing and psychology to sway people's reactions and opinions.
But once you combine the above, it turns out that those with control of the primary information distribution can influence public opinion. Now, they can't convince people that grass is purple and the sky is green, but they can sway public opinion. Politicians realize this and are thus swayed by those who control the information lest they make enemies who will seek to promote their opponents either in primaries or general elections (at least in the US with its government system).
>How exactly would you go about regulating speech "so that everyone gets an equal size megaphone"?
I don't have a clue, and as you suggest, such actions won't be without unforeseen consequences which could end up worse than the original problem. A few countries in the EU seem to have laws made to dampen the problem without fixing it, but the actual effectiveness of the laws is something I haven't seen any peer reviewed research on.