Could a narrow focus on Citizens United actually set back our drive for democracy?
That's been a real worry of mine, but my thinking has been fussy. So I was relieved to see Matt Bai, the New York Times Magazine's political correspondent, take on the challenge of deciphering what can and cannot be laid at the feet of this awful ruling.
In "How Did Political Money Get This Loud?" Bai suggests that Citizens United mainly "intensified" unintended consequences of earlier reforms. He argues that the burst of political spending in the last two years, while huge, is actually in line with the trajectory of growth in campaign spending since McCain-Feingold reforms in 2002.
He stresses that the biggest consequence of McCain-Feingold and Citizens United may not be the staggering scale of spending, but that "candidates don't really have control of their own campaigns anymore..."
With the passage of McCain-Feingold, Bai explains, "parties could no longer tap an endless stream of soft money [unlimited contributions used in a range of party activities not directly asking for votes]." So they turned to another means: "independent groups with their own turnout and advertising campaigns limited in what they could say," emphasizes Bai, "but accountable to no candidate or party boss..."
Then, Citizens United and related Court decisions wiped out most remaining limits, so "[n]ow any outside group can use corporate money to make a direct case for who deserves your vote and why, and they can do so right up to Election Day." The big outside groups today are "social-welfare groups" (including, believe it or not, Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity) and Super PACs, and the difference between them? Super PACs must disclose donors' identities, but social-welfare groups generally don't.
Many will likely debate Bai's analysis, but my concern is what it misses altogether:
"That there are solutions we can realize at least in part in the foreseeable future."
We can move democracy forward even before a new Supreme Court majority reversing Citizens United or victory in a long battle for a constitutional amendment.
Wonderfully, Americans are united across political divisions in our anger at big money's control of politics. Sixty-seven percent of us favor "voluntary public financing" of elections, already enabling regular citizens to run for the legislature in three states. And two-thirds of Americans also support disclosure of large contributors.
So let's get on with building a bipartisan uprising of voters with the guts to insist that candidates we support in November pledge to back DISCLOSE Act and Fair Elections legislation -- now being refined in Congress -- and that, once in place, they use this system, not private wealth, for their campaigns. (Under the "fair elections" bill, a candidate raises a specific number of small, in-state contributions -- each no bigger than $100 -- to qualify for significant public funds, both a lump sum and five dollars for each small-donor dollar up to a cap.) And let's demand that candidates we support denounce any unaccountable electioneering bodies, whether backing them or other candidates.
Join with the dozens of groups already on board from Public Citizen to Friends of the Earth at FairElectionsNow.org and reach out to friends and strangers who've never heard of this option.
Note that the DISCLOSE Act failed last week to achieve the super majority it needed by only nine votes. Nine is an achievable shift this November.
We can't afford to wait for the Supreme Court. We can't afford to wait for a constitutional amendment. Let's focus now on electing a president and a Congress who share the majority's position on these foundational questions. On this path, we begin to reduce the power of concentrated wealth in public decision making as we also build the inclusive citizen pressure necessary to reverse laws and rulings hindering solutions to all our biggest national challenges.
Follow Frances Moore Lappe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fmlappe
The public also has little awareness of the mega-expanion of Citizens United as the SCOTUS doubled down following the Montana challenge. Now it covers all campaign of any size, in every state, down to town council races.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/NY-Attorney-General-Fights-by-Gustav-Wynn-120805-337.html
Until there is one and only one transparency standard for ALL, then you are just another political hypocrite trying to game the system for your side.
I would say our 2 major parties in their struggle for power have created this duopoly. The cost and manpower necessary to promote the turd sandwich with mustard over the plain turd sandwich is staggering, but what most people miss is the absolute power the two parties have over our choices.
If we look at what they have created in rational terms we see it is an auction and most citizens can't afford to bid. We see this in a lot of polls on policy today yet it makes no difference in their choices.
The only way out I can see is to get the money out of the hands of the lobbyists and make purchasing legislation illegal on both sides of the deal. There is no free market when companies or industries can use the federal govt. as a weapon to eliminate their competition and the best way to do this is by "investing" in govt. through campaign donations or lobby money.
Until we change incentives in govt. we will see public service continue to morph into public self service and end up with an oligarchy that serves a small fraction of society at the expense of the many.
Never forget that both parties ride the same gravy train folks and as long as we only have 2 choices we limit the possibility of evolving our nation into something better.
1. Large non-profits (more than 500,000 members) are exempt from DISCLOSE! This means big unions are exempted.
2. Most large companies would be prevented from mentioning candidates for a year before elections - unions exempted of course.
Summary - DISCLOSE failed, NOT because it sought to bring transparency to election financing, but because it would have this election and all the ones to follow to the unions, which today means the public employee unions.
I realize some people would think handing elections over to unions is a good thing.
The vast majority of us don't.
That's utter nonsense. It wouldn't, because it could not have accomplished anything of the sort. (Making a plausible assertion isn't the same thing as stating the truth. Here, you've made a plausible assertion--that happens to be a Neo-Con talking point--but [as so many are] one completely divorced from reality.)
"The vast majority of us don't [think that handing elections over to unions is a good thing]."
The reality, as reported by pollingreport.com, is that a year ago a Gallup poll with a 4% margin of error found that 52% of Americans approved of labor unions, 42% disapproved, and 6% were unsure; and that 55% thought unions should have more influence than, or as much as, they now do, with 42% preferring less and 3% unsure. (Claiming to be part of a vast majority doesn't make it so. So, unless by "[t]he vast majority of us" you meant "the vast majority of low information voters", your assertion seems to be well and truly unsupported by the facts.)