This post was co-authored by Michael Winship, senior writer for the Bill Moyers Journal.
That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything -- and the value of nothing -- has come to define this present moment of American politics.
No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government. Everything, and everyone, comes with a price tag attached: from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress, to the fate of health care reform, our environment, and efforts to restrain Wall Street's greed and prevent another financial catastrophe.
Our government is not broken; it's been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle, more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.
Last month, the Supreme Court carried cynicism to new heights with its decision in the Citizens United case. Spun from a legal dispute over the airing on a pay-per-view channel of a right-wing documentary attacking Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries, the decision could have been made very narrowly. Instead, the conservative majority of five judges issued a sweeping opinion that greatly expands corporate power over our politics.
Never mind that in at least two separate polls an overwhelming majority of Americans from both political parties say they want no part of the Court's decision; they want even more limits on the power of money in elections. But candidates and their campaign consultants are gearing up to exploit the court's gift in the fall elections.
Just this week, that indispensable journalistic website Talking Points Memo reported that K&L Gates, an influential Washington lobbying firm, is alerting corporate clients on how to use trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce as pass-throughs to dump unlimited amounts of cash directly into elections. They can advocate or oppose a candidate right up to Election Day, while keeping a low profile to prevent "public scrutiny" and bad press coverage. And media outlets already are licking their chops at the prospect of all that extra money to be spent buying airtime -- as much as an additional $300 million dollars. That's not even counting production and post-production costs of campaign ads, which are considerable. A bad situation just got worse.
If you want to know just how much worse, look to the decision's potential impact on our court system, where integrity, independence and fair play count the most when it comes to preserving faith in our system. It's as susceptible to the lure of corporate wealth as the executive and legislative branches are.
Ninety-eight percent of all the lawsuits in this country take place in the state courts. In 39 states, judges have to run for election -- that's more than 80 percent of the state judges in America.
The Citizens United decision makes those judges who are elected even more susceptible to the corrupting influence of cash, for many of their decisions in civil cases directly affect corporate America, and a significant amount of the money judges raise for their campaigns comes from lobbyists and lawyers.
In the words of Charles W. Hall, a spokesman for the non-partisan, judicial watchdog group Justice at Stake, "Corporate bottom lines are not affected by whether a bank robber gets 10 or 20 years in prison. The bottom lines are affected however by whether a large scale lawsuit is upheld or overturned."
During the 1990s, candidates for high court judgeships in states around the country and the parties that supported them raised $85 million dollars for their campaigns. Since the year 2000, the numbers have more than doubled to over $200 million.
The nine justices currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court have raised nearly $12 million in campaign contributions. The race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year was the most expensive judicial race in the country, with more than four and a half million dollars spent by the Democrats and Republicans. Now, with the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate money's muscle just got a big hypodermic full of steroids.
As Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his 90-page Citizens United dissent, "At a time when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch... the Court today unleashes the floodgates of corporate and union general treasury spending in these races."
States that elect their judges, he said, "after today, may no longer have the ability to place modest limits on corporate electioneering even if they believe such limits to be critical to maintaining the integrity of their judicial systems."
No wonder that legal experts, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (the only living current or former Supreme Court member to have been an elected state court judge), have called for states with judicial elections to switch to a system of merit selection. Judges would be appointed but possibly subject to "retention elections" in which voters can simply vote thumbs up or down as to whether jurists are qualified to remain on the bench.
Until such changes are made, the temptations of corporate cash mean that in those states where judicial elections still prevail there hangs a crooked sign on every courthouse reading, "Justice for Sale."
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
http://www.ajs.org/ajs/pdfs/AJSstatement-CitizensUnited1-21-10.pdf
As a point of clarification, it is true that judges in 39 states are subject to some form of election, but contested judicial elections for high court judgeships take place in only 20 states. The retention elections that are held in the remaining states have been virtually immune from big spending by candidates and special interests. While more than $200 million was raised from 1999 to 2008 by candidates in contested high court races, just over $2 million was raised during the same period by candidates in retention elections. This is one of the reasons that AJS supports merit selection and retention systems for selecting and re-selecting judges.
Money often costs too much.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Collect enough valid signatures to get on the ballot and qualify for campaign funds. Then it's all about how creatively they promote themselves and their platform. It'll just be about the issues and their personal charisma in delivering their message.
And let the funding be generous. What money we'd lose in taxes, we'd get back a hundred fold in every area of our lives. Medical care, tuition, lower taxes, more jobs and better paying ones at that, banking/credit card fees, interest rates, etc, etc.
We'd eliminate most lobbyist influence and any candidate caught accepting funds will be convicted of a felony and do ACTUAL time.
Make that the law and we'd have a Washington that mostly worked, for a change.
Is it any wonder that a union president would disagree with any decision that gave his political opponents back their First Amendment freedom?
Is it any less surprising when one considers that the whole point of the Left is to ram through unpopular measures by hook or by crook?
Yet.
Although it is likely that the crushing weight of this decision will not be felt by you, but by your children. It will take the corporations some little time to move from "Should we?" to "Why not?".
lollll...it is doubtful that those who will use the corporate facade to have their way with democracy will stop to ponder what will happen to their descendants, should they fail to remain among the world's wealthiest.
a sort of William F Buckley of the Left...yet from the tree of poisoned fruit comes...Moyers worked for LBJ...easily the most corrupt president in American history...
8F Group, Bobby Baker, Billie SOl Estes, TFX/Korth scandal, Box 13, Brown & Root and Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam (you probly remember Brown & Root under the name Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Haliburton that gave us Dick Cheney). And what WAS LBJ's involvement in Dallas?
Sorry, love the golden words, but have been taken in far too many times by slick presentations.
So let's leave Moyers as is -- a great man, a gifted thinker of our times, and someone we can really look to for genuine inspiration. When we all have one foot in the grave we can look back and say, Now HE was a GREAT human being! I can actually identify ONE OF THEM!
I realize I am extrapolating here but only in time, not in the magnitude of corporate crime. Soon they will be incapable of commiting a crime.
Do suppose the Left can survive if it has to pay its own way?
Do you think the Right will survive if they have to pay their own way?
See, Markey, the way I said it the "right" is made up of humans, but by using "it" you could be talking about a big pile of gravel instead of people. Do you think the Republic can survive if it's Federal offices are for sale to the highest bidder, regardless of nationality? That's the important question, not if your team wins the big game. This is NOT a game, Markey, it's not cocktail conversation. The SC has said anybody in the world with INC after their name can buy our White House. That's not a Republican priority? Saving our nation? Forget the political parties for a couple of minutes and try to think like an American citizen. If the Chinese tanks were rolling down Broadway would you refuse to fight if the general was a Democrat? Would it matter then? Well, it matters now, it matters that somebody better think about preserving our Republic instead of sniping after which Party gives out the goodies to their supporters. This is bigger than your partisan comments, this is about saving ALL of us Americans.
Every time I hear an American championing democracy and capitalism, I want to ask, "which is it?"; the former is "one person, one vote"; the latter is "one dollar, one vote". The two are actually mutually exclusive unless every voter has the same number of dollars.
That money corrupts justice is well-documented. The generalization is that corruption will be found wherever money concentrates - justice, healthcare, education, pro sports, business, and foreign policy spring to mind. The last one is particularly galling to me, as America's corrupted motives are so painstakingly glossed over by idealistic nonsense about the immutable beauty of democracy and capitalism....
For the record, concerning commerce generally, I am a staunch capitalist, because I feel the best remedy to corruption is a more informed and ethical buyer, not government oversight of the seller. But if I had a choice between government-funded healthcare and government-funded justice, I would pick justice, hands down. While the principle of "there but for the grace of God" applies to both, I find the concept of justice for sale even more apalling than that of health for sale. I strongly suspect that the "public option" for justice is kept carefully off everyone's radar screen....
...just like public healthcare would be if Congress were stacked with doctors instead of lawyers.
A thank you is due for all your efforts to warn us of this, that and everything that has dragged the country down over many years. This issue of judges being elected to office is just one more "crime against American humanity". What I am surprised is that right now a crime against the American people is being committed in the Congress in the form of the just UNANIMOUSLY passed (395 to 3) HR2278, but as usual our media has been conspiciously silent on the subject. Even Huffington Post and Democracy Now appear to have overlooked blatant crime against fundamental rights. I dont understand, can we no longer turn to anyone including the last two mentioned? What happened that even these 2 hopefuls appear to have been silenced by "Ze Lobby".
All the well known left-leaning liberals either voted for HR2278 or abstained while being present at the scene of this crime,like our usually beloved Dennis Kucinic. The Black and Latin Caucus "sold out" en masse, which is of little surprise. God save America from itself.
Title: To direct the President to transmit to Congress a report on anti-American incitement to violence in the Middle East, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Bilirakis, Gus M. [FL-9] (introduced 5/6/2009) Cosponsors (2)
Please note that the sponsor is a Republican. What the heck are you talking about, George?
How do you come up with that stuff?
All i can say is visit any developed country (the US is the only one without a coherant healthcare system) because they have one form or another of universal health care. You will then see that not only it is possible but works far better.
When the lower rungs of society are given access to basic health, they are much more productive and the entire society advances by leaps and bounds.
The idea that the US is #1 in health care is not only a lie but it is stoopid. All you need to do is look at the statistics like infant mortality or even heart attack survival. Every one is so scared to lose the little bit that they have, that they can't see the forest for the trees.
And by the way, "are the insurance companies really the villians?"
Yes and then some...
It seems to me that we not only have failed to sell Democracy to the Arabs but they have sold their methods of greed and corruption to our so called Democracies.
Democracy has come to mean a vote every 4 or5 years and no control of what happens in between. There was hope with Obama but that hope is fading fast.