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Other Reforms
By Adam Skaggs – 02/07/12
The mock outrage at President Obama’s campaign for blessing contributions to the Super PAC supporting him, Priorities USA, is a distraction from the real questions about today’s campaign finance environment — how to stop the abuses, and who will provide the leadership needed to achieve meaningful change.
The president’s apparent about-face — from condemning “the corrosive influence of money in politics” in the State of the Union to his campaign’s announcement that it will “do what [it] can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA” — provided plenty of fodder for critics. But it’s not surprising. In 2008, Obama reversed course, too — he first planned to participate in the presidential public financing program, but later eschewed it when it became clear he could raise more money outside the system.
The reality in 2012 is that no candidate with a serious chance of winning can afford, in the words of Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina, to “unilaterally disarm.” The campaign fundraising arms race this election cycle, like it or not, involves Super PACs. They’ve already dumped $40 million of slash-and-burn attack ads into the Republican presidential primaries. Karl Rove’s Super PAC alone, working with a related non-profit group, raised $51 million last year.
However disappointing it was to campaign reform advocates, the only surprise about the Obama campaign’s decision to play by the same rules is that it waited this long to make the announcement. Any campaign that doesn’t take advantage of the rules that permit super spending by Super PACs doesn’t stand a chance.
The Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC helped enable the Super PAC takeover of elections (as did other court decisions), but the Supreme Court isn’t entirely to blame. Under the Court’s decisions, the only groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums are groups that are completely independent of the campaigns. The candidate-specific Super PACs are anything but.
Why do these groups, which look like shadow arms of the campaigns to any common-sense viewer, operate under rules designed for groups that are wholly independent of campaigns? In large part, the answer has to do with the Federal Election Commission.
In 2010, the FEC issued an advisory opinion that green-lighted Super PACs: as long as a group tells the FEC it’s not affiliated with any campaign and won’t make direct contributions to candidates, it can raise and spend without limit. Later, in spite of laws providing that groups like Super PACs can’t coordinate with candidates and still claim to be independent, the FEC said that Super PACs could legally do a whole lot that looks like coordination. Only at the FEC can a group run ads that are “fully coordinated” with a candidate and still say it is “wholly independent” of his campaign.
The FEC was created under the Federal Election Campaign Act, enacted 40 years ago today, and the last four decades have shown that the agency isn’t up to the task of enforcing the nation’s campaign finance laws. The Alice-in-Wonderland approach it has taken to the Super PACs dominating this year’s election is just its latest failure.
Congress should replace the FEC with an agency that will actually carry out its mission. (While it’s at it, Congress could fix the Super PAC problem by passing laws that give real meaning to words like “independence” and “coordination.”) The abuses that will inevitably emerge from this year’s orgy of Super PAC spending should be sufficient to galvanize support from both sides of the aisle to pass meaningful campaign reform.
But even if partisan gridlock in Congress continues to stymie legislative reform, the president can take a significant step toward addressing the current state of dysfunction at the FEC. Five of the six commissioners who “lead” the agency are serving with expired terms, and the president has the power to appoint competent replacements committed to enforcing the nation’s campaign laws.
A coalition of reform groups under the leadership of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has been calling on President Obama to do just that — since 2009. So far, the president has ignored the calls to appoint new leaders to the FEC.
There is no excuse for further delay. If President Obama is genuinely concerned about the “corrosive” impact of big money in our elections, he should demonstrate it with action, not rhetoric.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Jonathan Backer – 01/30/12
Throughout the 2012 election, candidates have piously condemned Super PACs for lowering the level of political discourse. These same candidates have simultaneously derived enormous gain when these purportedly independent groups used unlimited contributions to tar and feather their opponents. Recently, in South Carolina, Gingrich criticized Romney’s Super PAC for airing inaccurate ads, but the former Massachusetts governor washed his hands of the ads, saying, “I’m not allowed to communicate with a super PAC in any way, shape or form. My goodness, if we coordinate in any way whatsoever, we go to the big house.”
Two politicians, however, have now mustered more than rhetoric to rein in the Super PACs. Last week, U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren and Senator Scott Brown called for Super PACs and other outside groups to stop running ads in their election. To provide a disincentive for Super PACs to ignore their request, Brown and Warren each vowed to donate 50 percent of the cost of all such ads to charity. Most groups have reluctantly agreed to abide by the request.
Both candidates demonstrated genuine concern for the role of Super PACs in the political system. Brown criticized Super PACs for “trying to buy elections and do[ing] things inappropriately.” Warren praised the agreement as an attempt to move “beyond talk to real action to stop advertising from third-party groups.” Both candidates should be commended for taking concrete steps to change the tone and restore accountability to their electoral contest.
The goodwill of candidates, however, should not be the only barrier to unrestrained and secretive corporate spending in politics. Government needs to restore common-sense rules so that the public can hold outside groups accountable in the post-Citizens United era. Reportedly, Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Robert Brady (D-PA) will soon introduce legislation that would require outside groups to disclose the underlying sources of their funding. Such legislation would be an important first step to ensuring that outside groups are held accountable in future elections.
James Madison defended the role of a robust federal government in our political system by saying, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” If all candidates were as attuned to the perils of unlimited and opaque political spending by corporations as Brown and Warren are, perhaps we would not need campaign finance regulation. But there are too many candidates who are willing to rhetorically distance themselves from outside groups while doing nothing to rein in their worst practices. It’s time for government to play a proactive role in protecting our democracy again.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Jonathan Backer – 01/06/12
Recently, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on corporate independent expenditures. This is a direct rebuke of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down a federal ban on corporate independent expenditures, largely based on the assumption that such spending inherently cannot corrupt elected officials.
The majority opinion in Citizens United, authored by Justice Kennedy, concluded that “independent expenditures do not lead to, or create the appearance of, quid pro quo corruption” and that “there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate.” But, thanks to a procedural quirk, the case shot up to the Supreme Court before anyone in the case could engage in any real fact-finding. So, Kennedy’s conclusion was little more than an untested hypothesis, not supported by any hard evidence.
When presented with evidence of corruption in a similar case, Justice Kennedy came to a totally different conclusion. Caperton v. Massey dealt with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice who failed to recuse himself from a case involving a CEO who spent nearly $3 million on independent expenditures in support of the justice’s election. Because the independent expenditures constituted the vast majority of spending in the judicial election, Justice Kennedy concluded that the justice should have recused himself because “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, [and] similar fears of bias can arise when…a man chooses the judge in his own cause.”
Though Kennedy never said that the independent expenditures in Caperton had a potentially corrupting influence, “bias” and “corruption” are cut from the same cloth. Quite simply, a serious fact-based analysis of the role of independent expenditures in the West Virginia Supreme Court election led Kennedy to correctly conclude that large independent expenditures have just as much capacity to influence policymakers as a direct contribution — if not more.
Perhaps taking its cue from Caperton, the Montana Supreme Court engaged in a similarly thorough fact-based analysis of independent expenditures and reached a similar conclusion. Upholding the law, Justice McGrath argued that citizens adopted the law in a populist revolt against the “naked corporate manipulation” of the state — at that time, one mining company controlled “90% of the press in the state and a majority of the legislature.” Justice McGrath concluded that corporate money clearly corrupted Montana’s government before the adoption of the law and would do so again if permitted. McGrath and the other justices on the Montana Supreme Court (even those who dissented) tried to use fact-based analysis in order to expose the lack of factual basis for the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Citizens United that independent expenditures inherently cannot corrupt.
The recently concluded saga of the Republican Iowa caucuses provides more evidence than ever before of how strained the court’s rationale was in Citizens United. Candidate super PACs spent two-thirds of the $12.5 million worth of ads in Iowa under the legal illusion of non-coordination with the candidates. The plurality of those ads — 45 percent of all ads run in Iowa — came at the expense of Newt Gingrich, who once cheered Citizens United as a “great victory for free speech.” Of course, where you stand depends on where you sit — Gingrich now complains of Super PACs, the progeny of Citizens United, "[T]hey have no responsibilities, they have no connection to any pattern of reasonable politics, and it’s a model I hope we can get beyond..."*
Gingrich’s about-face on campaign finance reform is cynical, but it represents a recognition by many that a Supreme Court ruling rooted in ideology rather than reality creates the potential for countless unintended consequences; consequences far more dire for our republic than a stymied Gingrich presidential campaign. The Montana Supreme Court decision — which the plaintiffs will appeal to the Supreme Court — is an opportunity for the Court to face facts and recognize the corrupting influence of corporate independent expenditures, just as it did in Caperton. Will it seize the day and save American elections? Stay tuned.
*This post previously attributed a quote to Newt Gingrich saying that “[c]ampaign finance law has made a mockery of our political campaign season.” The quote should have been attributed to Mitt Romney.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Jonathan Backer – 11/17/11
James Madison once wrote, “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.” By exploiting loopholes in campaign finance law, special interests have already succeeded in denying the public of essential information about the sources of money funding political speech. A farcical attempt by one group to keep the public in the dark while also coordinating its message with candidates makes for good political comedy now, but will lead to tragedy if our elected officials begin to feel the full corrupting influence of unlimited, undisclosed, corporate contributions.
In the latest installment of Stephen Colbert’s intrepid quest to expose the absurdities of campaign finance non-regulation in the post-Citizens United era, the comedian recently discussed a new attempt by Super PACs to circumvent the few constraints that remain on their electioneering activities. The Super PAC American Crossroads recently submitted a request to the Federal Election Commission seeking permission for federal candidates to appear in its purportedly “independent” ads. The group acknowledged that ads featuring candidates would be “fully coordinated with incumbent Members of Congress facing re-election in 2012.” After all, a Super PAC would obviously have to share a script and discuss the contents of an ad with a candidate in order for her to appear in it. Nevertheless, American Crossroads would like the FEC to issue an advisory opinion stating that such ads would not qualify as “coordination.”
As the Brennan Center argued in a comment to the FEC, this position runs afoul of “[c]onstitutional law, federal statutes, and common sense.” Fortunately, common sense was no barrier to Stephen Colbert, who rose to the challenge and submitted a comment to the FEC in support of American Crossroads’ request. As Colbert wrote, “The candidate would merely be appearing as a paid spokesperson, who, coincidentally, is closely aligned with the candidate that he or she also is.” To illustrate the paper-thin separation between supposedly independent Super PACs and the candidates they support, Colbert offered an illuminating metaphor:
For example, an ad in which the Kool Aid man decries our nation-wide childhood thirst problem would not necessarily be an ad for Kool Aid brand juice drink. That being said, would a tall glass of Kool-Aid solve that thirst problem? To quote one expert: "Oh, yeaaahhhh!"
Colbert’s letter far and away outstrips the competition for funniest public comment to a regulatory agency, but even the comedian’s most ardent fans recognize that the consequences of a ruling in favor of American Crossroads are far from amusing. After Colbert emailed his comment to supporters of Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow (Colbert Super PAC), hundreds of individuals emailed the FEC calling for the agency to deny American Crossroads’ request.
As one civically-engaged student, Andrew Mugica, wrote, “As a young citizen of this country, I shudder to think of the ferocity at which campaigns are currently forced to solicit donations—the thought that they will be fighting for an even bigger chunk of shadowy money absolutely terrifies me….I hope we can find ways to avoid exacerbating this problem.”
Comedians and middle-school students don’t constitute what one would describe as usual suspects for submitting public comments on advisory opinion requests to the FEC. But the legal gymnastics that groups like American Crossroads are performing to subvert campaign finance regulations touch a nerve with large numbers of Americans. A request as absurd as American Crossroads’ belongs properly in the realm of farce, and the FEC should heed the outpouring of opposition and refuse to further expose our democracy to the tragic consequences of outright corruption in the political process.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Jonathan Backer – 10/25/11
Crossposted at Campus Progress.
Members of the Congressional Super Committee — a bipartisan group of lawmakers charged with cutting a minimum of $1.2 trillion from the federal budget — have just one month before their deadline. Despite the many issues that divide them, Super Committee members have at least one thing in common — they have allowed special interest influence to haunt their committee, much like the spooky ghosts known to stir up mischief this time of year.
As fans of Ghostbusters know, ghouls cannot be eliminated, but they can be contained. In the 1980s blockbuster, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis restore order to New York City by capturing evasive spirits in a high-tech containment unit. When it comes to the groups trying to influence the Super Committee, we too need a little “ecto-containment.” Special interest money will influence the decisions that the Super Committee makes, but prompt disclosure will give the public the ability to contain its ill effects by holding lawmakers accountable.
In a nationwide push spearheaded by the Sunlight Foundation this Halloween, constituents of Super Committee members will knock on district office doors to ask for neither tricks nor treats, but transparency.
As many have argued, robust transparency is the best way to keep Super Committee members working for the American people. To this end, the Brennan Center has pushed for real-time disclosure of contributions to Super Committee members, their meetings with lobbyists, and any solicitations by committee members for third-party groups. Legislators from both sides of the aisle, including Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), and Reps. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Mike Quigley (D-IL), and James Ranacci (R-OH), have sponsored bills that would require many of these policies. These efforts have not borne fruit. But the stakes keep rising.
The Project on Government Oversight estimates that the average Super Committee member, since being appointed, has raised an additional $2,270 per day in campaign contributions. (That’s more than many people earn per month.) One Super Committee member, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), reportedly raised twice as much in the third quarter of 2011 as he did in the second. The Sunlight Foundation reports that PACs for 19 of the biggest political donors — corporations like Lockheed Martin, the National Association of Realtors, Pfizer, and Chevron — donated a total of $83,000 to Super Committee members in the three weeks after their appointment.
On top of that, Politico reports that in the past six weeks, 200 companies and special interests have reported that they are lobbying Super Committee members. The Washington Post found that 100 former staffers for Super Committee members currently work as lobbyists. And according to the Huffington Post, half of the lawmakers on the Committee currently employ former lobbyists. The revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street, while nothing new, has a magnified potential to distort policy given the amount of power wielded by these twelve members.
Moreover, the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC has greatly expanded the role of supposedly independent political groups. Lawmakers, including Super Committee members, face more pressure than ever to fundraise for these groups and secure a larger piece of the third-party spending pie.
But between now and Thanksgiving, when the Super Committee must submit its proposals, information about these means of influence-peddling will remain cloaked in darkness. The Federal Election Commission will next report candidate contribution data on Jan. 31, 2012, long after the Super Committee reaches a final verdict. Even worse, the major independent spenders have all devised mechanisms to hide the identity of their donors, so we may never know who donated to these political powerhouses at Committee members’ requests. And, members have refused to create a public log of lobbyist meetings with their staff — this information too may never see the light of day.
But it is not too late for the Super Committee to voluntarily adopt these common sense rules. That’s why grassroots activists around the country are heeding the Sunlight Foundation’s call to celebrate Halloween by haunting the House and Senate — and you should too. On Oct. 31, visit the district offices of Super Committee members and call for greater transparency. With enough support, we can trap the ghosts of special interest influence in an “ecto-containment unit” of simple disclosure policies.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Jonathan Backer – 10/14/11
Unresolved problems persist as the super committee — a bipartisan group of 12 lawmakers charged with cutting a minimum of $1.2 trillion from the federal budget before Thanksgiving — begins its work. Unfortunately, the committee has made minimal efforts to provide transparency concerning the dollars meant to influence their decisions. On Sunday, for example, Sen. Max Baucus, (D-MT), a member of the super committee, will attend a $5,000 a plate dinner ($10,000 for hosts) at Oceana Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan to raise funds for a PAC called Montana Senate Victory 2012. Even in the midst of the committee’s deliberations, the public has no information about the special interests spending thousands for Senator Baucus’ attention.
Voices on the left and the right have called for super committee members to promptly disclose campaign donations they receive. Sen. David Vitter, (R-LA), last month introduced legislation that would require super committee members to disclose donations of more than $1,000 within 48-hours of receiving them, citing the values of openness, transparency, and “plain good government.” Reps. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and James Ranacci (R-OH) have introduced even tougher super committee disclosure legislation, which would require members to disclose donations in excess of $500 within 48-hours and keep a public log of their meetings with lobbyists. Rep. Loebsack said such disclosure was necessary because “the only people members of this committee should be listening to are the American people.”
But, as Sen. Baucus’s presence at the Montana Senate Victory 2012 event demonstrates, industry groups have many avenues through which to wield influence over super committee members. Closed-door, high-priced, off-the-record events such as the Oceana event give powerful interests access to super committee members that average Americans — the people with the most at stake in the committee’s deliberations — simply do not have. That’s why the Brennan Center has repeatedly called for super committee members to disclose their involvement in soliciting funds for third-party groups, including PACs like Montana Senate Victory 2012, but also the less transparent members of the post-Citizens United milieu — SuperPACs, 527s, and 501(c)(4)s and (c)(6)s.
PACs like Montana Senate Victory 2012 file quarterly fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission. But PACs closed their books on the summer quarter on September 30th, meaning that the public will have no idea what groups recently had Senator Baucus’s ear until January 31, 2012 — long after the super committee has closed up shop and Congress has rendered a final verdict on which programs and what people will shoulder the brunt of fiscal contraction. That’s not a fair way to conduct a national debate of this magnitude.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Mimi Murray Digby Marziani – 09/15/11
Crossposted at Salon.
All summer, NFL owners and players faced off in bare-knuckled negotiations that threatened to scotch this year's season. In the end, they reached a compromise. Americans have been cheering since last Thursday's first game.
The NFL opener coincided with the start of negotiations among members of the congressional supercommittee, tasked with crafting a long-term financial plan for our country. Unfortunately, the prospects for a crowd-pleasing, conciliatory ending seem much less likely.
This powerful committee held its first public hearing on Tuesday. Its "fans" — corporate lobbyists of all stripes — went wild, rushing the Capitol and positioning to get the biggest bang for their clients' bucks. One candidly revealed his best offensive strategy: "writing 12 really large checks." No doubt prominent campaign contributors of past elections, like the telecom giant AT&T and the abortion-rights advocate Emily's List, are also expecting front-row seats.
But, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, "Democracy is not a game." The committee's choices will set the nation's fiscal course for years — if not decades — to come, and will affect virtually all American voters, industries and communities of interest. The stakes couldn't be higher.
There is only one way to ensure that committee members (the "supers") stay super-focused on the general good rather than personal gains: through robust transparency. All potentially corrupting outside influences — large campaign contributors, lobbying contacts and fundraising relationships with outside political groups — must be made public.
The reasons for the first two are obvious. Real-time disclosure of large campaign contributions made to supers while they are deliberating is a key way for the American people to ascertain who is trying to curry favor now. Indeed, there is bipartisan support to impose a tight deadline upon such contributions — a rarity in today's polarized political environment.
In early August, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., introduced the Super Committee Sunshine Act, which would force committee members to disclose contributions over $1,000 within a 48-hour window. In his words, "Given the important work this committee will be doing over the next four months, it's just plain good government for the public to know what special interests are trying to influence the committee."
Last week, Reps. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, introduced the more comprehensive Deficit Committee Transparency Act. Like its Senate counterpart, this bill would demand prompt disclosure of campaign contributions. It would also require supers and their staffs to publicly disclose meetings with lobbyists and other special interests within 48 hours.
Disclosing lobbying contacts is just plain common sense. As the Washington Post recently reported, almost 100 registered lobbyists who used to work for members of the supercommittee now represent "defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel's work." And, half of the supers currently employ former lobbyists on their staffs. These close connections already raise the suspicion of backroom dealings. Holding meetings in secret does nothing but confirm our worst suspicions.
Unfortunately, both these bills are currently languishing in committee, and are not likely to see the light of day unless public attention forces congressional leaders to act. Even so, these measures are not enough.
The supers must also be forced to disclose their involvement in soliciting funds for supposedly independent groups that seek to influence politics. These groups — like SuperPACs, 501(c)(4)s, and trade organizations like the Chamber of Commerce — play an outsize role in today's elections, and can be designed to shield tit-for-tat arrangements with specific candidates. Without transparency, special interests could funnel political dollars for supers through friendly third-party groups with no disclosure obligations, ensuring that their political largess never becomes public.
Supers have certainly benefited from outside spending in recent elections. In her tight reelection last year, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., enjoyed more than $9 million of outside spending, helping her squeak by her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., spent years as the president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, a group that spent $8.2 million on independent expenditures last election cycle. As supers anticipate future hard elections, there is no question they will want these heavy-hitting political players on their side.
The temptation to promise political favors today for electoral support tomorrow will be hard to resist. The only solution is full transparency. After all, our democracy is on the front line.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Elizabeth Kennedy – 08/09/11
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
Stanley Greenberg recently described the current crisis of government legitimacy. He wrote that "the nexus of money and power, greased by special interest lobbyists and large campaign donations" means that "the game is rigged" and "the wealthy and big industries get policies that reinforce their advantage." He quotes voters who say "we don't have a representative government anymore." Considering the federal government's recent performance, and with Congress's disapproval rating at an all time high of 82 percent, it's a legitimate critique.
The major justification for laws governing the financing of political campaigns is that they will prevent "both the actual corruption threatened by large financial contributions and the eroding of public confidence in the electoral process through the appearance of corruption." Unfortunately, a real roadblock to comprehensive reform is the constrained, impoverished view of corruption articulated by the Supreme Court's conservative majority. They have disavowed the Court's prior understanding of the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth on a democracy
The idea that money can have deleterious influences on elections, even outside the context of bribery, goes back more than a century. The Supreme Court recognized this in McConnell v. FEC, when it found that corruption of government is "not confined to bribery of public officials, but extend[s] to the broader threat from politicians too compliant with the wishes of large contributors." The possibility that legislators will "decide issues not on the merits or the desires of their constituencies, but according to the wishes of those who have made large financial contributions valued by the officeholder" is a more subtle form of corruption than straight quid pro quo transactions, but is "equally dispiriting." And in FEC v. Beaumont, the case upholding the ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, the Court expressed concern that corporations would "use resources amassed in the economic marketplace to obtain an unfair advantage in the political marketplace."
Money in politics leads to corruption of government not only when a quid pro quo arrangement between a campaign contribution and favorable political treatment exists. The special access and undue influence awarded to those who have financial resources to support or oppose a representative's re-election are themselves a form of democratic corruption. It leads to the rampant cynicism and civic disengagement when voters conclude that "there's just such a control of government by the wealthy that whatever happens, it's not working for all the people; it's working for a few of the people."
Regrettably, in Citizens United the Court expressly found that "the appearance of influence or access . . . will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." As evidenced by Mr. Greenberg's research, the public has a more realistic understanding than the Supreme Court of the corruption that results from campaign finance policies that allow large amounts of money to dominate elections in a democracy. The American people understand that who pays the piper calls the tune, and don't care about the formalistic distinctions that run through campaign finance jurisprudence.
The Supreme Court has moved far away from a holistic view of what corruption of a representative government looks like. In another case decided this year, Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan, Justice Scalia discussed the motivations that induce a legislator to vote one way or another, and equated a legislator voting according to his best judgment, voting against his best judgment but in the interest of his constituents, and voting against his best judgment but in the interest of his contributors. Only the first two are democratically legitimate considerations when determining the public policy of our country — the last is a perversion of our democracy to benefit the wealthy and elite.
There are several proposals to increase transparency and accountability for money in politics. The Fair Elections Now Act would enact public financing of Congressional campaigns to break the stranglehold of special interest money. This would increase the amount of political speech available to voters, allow candidates to spend more time reaching out to voters and addressing their concerns, and supercharge the power of small donors. The draft Executive Order on disclosure of political spending by government contractors would shine a light into back-rooms and discourage political favoritism when spending taxpayer money. The Shareholder Protection Act would require companies to get permission from their shareholders and disclose the money they spend to influence elections. The 2012 elections are expected to be the most expensive ever, and awash in the secret spending should our leaders fail to enact reforms.
During the debate on the debt ceiling, polls showed that most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, were in favor of taking a balanced approach and raising revenue by closing loopholes that benefit the wealthiest Americans and special interests. And yet, once again, the result from Washington did not reflect the people's preferred policy solution. Our government is not serving their interests, and it is a democratic shame.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
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