2010 will be another very rough year for all of us real people, despite the smug exuberance of Wall Street. Bankers are divvying-up their bonuses and climate change deniers are celebrating in Copenhagen. It’s high-time we put an end to this circus. I am about to take a position here that will probably land me in constitutional hot water with a few GMD participants; but I think it has to be aired.
The mind-numbing inertia in Washington, whether with regard to healthcare reform, climate action, bank regulation, or relief for the unemployed, is the direct product of a single crippling evil: privately funded election campaigns.
Let’s get a movement going to demand that all national election campaigns be funded from a single public coffer and eliminate private fund-raising altogether. We’ve had the discussion, right here on GMD, about why this might contravene decisions already made by the Supreme Court, equating money with free-speech. If that is the case (and I do not doubt that it is), that decision was WRONG, and if we value our democracy, we must yell loud and long until it is reversed. How can we allow that to stand when the wealth in this country is being steadily concentrated in fewer and fewer individuals, so that we will soon have no true middle class, just a vast underclass and a tiny super-rich overclass?
On the surface, this may sound like an expensive new entitlement to heap on the shoulders of struggling taxpayers; but besides eliminating one of the most corrupting influences in the public process, it will actually save them a fortune. Here’s why:
In the brave new world of internet connectivity, there is ample opportunity to learn everything possible about candidates, their records and their positions from the comfort of an over-stuffed chair. There is no need for expensive personal appearances, hotel suites, chauffeured tour buses and limousines, private jets…ANY jets. No Secret Service details, hired halls and chicken suppers. We don’t need it…any of it.
In exchange for the privilege of using our public airways to shill for soap companies and fast-food restaurants, all broadcast networks should be required to serve the nations information needs during election cycles, by contributing a set amount of equal time for all candidates for office. Telephone services should be made available to candidates by providers in a similar equal access manner. Limited level public-funding would meet the basic staffing requirements of qualifying candidates. Under this plan, none of the candidates’ personal wealth could be invested in the campaign.
The election cycles would be shorter, less toxic and more to the point. Highly qualified candidates with good moral character, but low incomes and a reluctance to sell their souls, would actually have a shot at ascending to the highest offices in the land. What we would spend to level the playing field in elections would be more than made-up for by the elimination of pork-barrel projects, thousand dollar toilet seats, and Halliburton-style hand-outs that have turned Washington into the election funders’ personal piggy bank. What a revolution that would be!
It would be hell-on-wheels to pass such sweeping election reform, especially given the likely reluctance of corporate America to relinquish their claw-hold on our democracy; but shouldn’t we demand it from those cash-cows we routinely seat in Congress? I remember watching “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” when I was about nine-years old. I thought it was a wonderful story, but recognized it as sheer fiction. I understood that Jimmy Stewart’s goofy Boy Ranger character was just a romantic invention; but I also thought the “bad” Senator, Claude Raines, and his cohorts were equally fantastic. Fresh from my civics class, I had absolute confidence that Congress was unassailable to human weakness; that the men (they were nearly all men when I was nine) who ascended to that high estate were the smartest and noblest citizens of these United States. Clearly, I was in for a rude-awakening in short order! To me, it was beyond comprehension that the American people would actually tolerate a system whereby the rich and powerful routinely bought and sold elections.
At sixty, I’m about out of the fairy dust necessary to keep re-inventing my belief in the future of America. Senators Leahy and Sanders; Rep. Welch, this is my challenge to you: let’s stop talking about election reform and start making it happen.
I hope it wasen’t that dead hores mistype that pushed you over the edge…
I think we have given away the airwaves and Fox would simply faint if they had to put Bernie on, and frankly the cable industry doesn’t do that much on the public airwaves thing…. unless you count sat uplinks.. which you probably could.
I personally like the idea of a business tax which would probably cut down on the gross amount Pharma or big oil pay now..
However, you are correct… Action is what is necessary.
I think this may be the single most important issue to face right now. We cannot trust our representatives until we know that they are dependent on us for reelection rather than a large check from some corporation. I would recommend people check out change-congress.org they propose citizen funded elections which would work similarly to publicly funded elections now except that candidates would be allowed to collect small donations from individuals on top of the public money.
Beware the unintended consequences. Wouldn’t this just shift special interest dollars to non-candidate vessels? Is that cacophony of less-transparent, less-regulated voices an improvement over the status quo? Or are you proposing to prevent non-candidates from expressing views about candidiates? — a direct restriction on political speech that runs counter to the First Amendment.
No doubt, this is a complicated and challenging issue. Which is probably why no easy answer has emerged over the decades.
YES!
I have been banging this drum for years and I’m finally seeing the subject of campaign finance getting some attention. The problem is partly that every progressive organization out there gets caught up in its own special issue and doesn’t have time to look at the overall system.
I wrote an essay back in 2006 on The Wealth Primary, a study by USPIRG on money in congressional primaries. Conclusions: Whichever candidate spends the most, wins, 9 times out of 10. ~80% of that money comes in thousand-dollar chunks from millionaires. About 200,000 people use their checkbooks to decide who gets to run for congress.
Upshot: Go ahead and try to get congress to reform healthcare, labor law, environmental law, or whatever. You are trying to convince people who have gone through a money filter designed to eliminate anyone who might agree with you.
As far as savings go, just consider the $70-100 billion we lose each year to millionaire tax cheats. The IRS doesn’t have the mandate, the funding, or the staff to go after them, and we know why. Fully publicly funded elections would cost about $2.5 billion a year, so the tax implications alone offer us a 30:1 payback every year.
I think we can get around Buckley vs. Valeo by capping and multiple matching private donations (max of $50 becomes $450) and not capping total amounts raised.
The question is one of strategy. How do we get a corrupt body to reform itself? How do we convince a suspicious public to finance the campaigns of people widely regarded as corrupt? I’m afraid it is going to take something equivalent to a new civil rights movement.