As previously discussed in Lobby Blog, we are experiencing an election cycle filled with much anti –lobbying rhetoric from leading presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Donald Trump. Nevertheless, lobbyists have come to play a significant role supporting many of the 2016 presidential campaigns through direct donations and fundraising. Lobby Blog has previously reported that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “received more than $600,000 from more than 300 different registered lobbyists and PACs in the first half of 2015.”

The support for candidates from lobbyists has continued into 2016. According to the Hill, “Lobbyists may well give more in 2016 than they did in previous cycles… And with control of the Senate in play, it’s increasingly difficult for lobbyists from both parties to resist fundraising pleas.” Already in this election cycle “the top 20 givers among registered federal lobbyists, as identified by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, have collectively donated more than $2.5 million.”

The Hill argues that on the Democratic side one explanation of the increase in lobbying contributions is because of “new arrangements such as joint fundraising committees have also driven up the requests for money. And registered Democratic lobbyists, who for two presidential cycles were blocked by President Barack Obama from donating to his campaigns, have now been liberated. They have made Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton the top recipient of K Street cash among White House hopefuls this election cycle. The Democratic National Committee is also once more welcoming lobbyist checks.”

Lobbyists, such as Pat Raffaniello, who runs Raffaniello & Associates, also argue that while there may be an increase in spending from the industry, it is nothing compared to the millions of dollars raised and donated to PACs by highroller groups such as hedge funds. According to Raffaniello “Unless you are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems like a wasted effort from a lobbying point of view…You don’t get on anybody’s radar screen.”  However, some like Nick Penniman, Executive Director of Issue One, argue that “direct donations from lobbyists to lawmakers and congressional candidates have special value, even if they’re comparatively low…Lobbyists don’t have the big checks, but lobbyists’ money, because it’s going directly to the campaigns, is pure gold…It’s the highest currency in political giving.”

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) has proposed a constitutional amendment to change the campaign finance landscape yet again, by “effectively revers[ing] two landmark Supreme Court decisions — the 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which said spending money in elections is a form of speech, and the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled it unconstitutional to regulate the money spent to influence elections by corporations and unions.

The amendment would allow Congress and the states to regulate campaign contributions and expenditures, by allowing Congress to regulate the amount of money raised and spent for federal campaigns (including independent expenditures), allowing states to regulate fundraising and spending at in state elections, and opening the door for Congress to pass unspecified campaign finance reform legislation in the future.

“Letting this go unchecked is a threat to our democracy. Campaigns should be about the best ideas, not the biggest checkbooks,” Udall said at a press conference.

Huffington Post reports, “Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the proposed amendment, called the Buckley case ‘one of the worst decisions that the Supreme Court has rendered in the last hundred years’ and described the Citizens United ruling as ‘Buckley on steroids.'”

A reversal of the Citizens United decision has been one of the demands of Occupy Wall Street protesters.  “The extent to which money and corporations have taken over the [campaign] process is reflected across our cities in the Occupy movement,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) says. “It is something we have to do something about if we are going to reclaim American democracy as the shining light to other countries that it has always been.”  Sen. Whitehouse is also co-sponsoring the amendment.