Sue 'Em Back to the Stone Age: The RNC Files Suit to Reverse the Small Donor Revolution
To the millions of grassroots activists and fundraisers who came of age in the 2008 election, the year 2000 seems like the era of the dinosaurs - a time when the fundraising landscape was the fiercely guarded territory of corporate behemoths, whose massive footprints and titanic struggles for dominance made any grassroots level activity seem pathetically minuscule. But last week, a three-judge panel of the D.C. federal court heard oral arguments in a case where the RNC is seeking to turn back the clock to a time when Obama's much-vaunted "small-donor revolution" would have been drowned in a flood of largely unregulated corporate "soft money" donations.
Back in the bad old days of soft money (i.e., donations to political parties to which federal contribution regulations did not apply), neither party had much of an incentive to reach out to small donors. After all, why bother building an entire organizational infrastructure to solicit donations $10 at a time when Enron is thrilled to cut you a six- or seven-figure check? Political fundraising at this time was a noisome swamp of influence peddling - an era in which pharmaceutical companies wrote multimillion dollar soft money checks to kill the Generic Drug Bill in committee, a $1 million soft money contribution preceded a $280 million tax break for Amway, and a torrent of soft money fundraising scandals engulfed both major parties. A soft money donor - unconfined by the strict monetary limits on direct donations to candidates - could give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party, and enjoy a range of perks including golf outings with Senators and nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Cue the meteor -- the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, popularly known as McCain-Feingold, which changed the climate of federal political fundraising by draining the swamp of huge corporate soft money donations. To continue the metaphor, the national parties were forced to adapt to this colder, drier fundraising landscape by turning to the grassroots, and especially to the small donors who had not warranted much attention in the soft money era. McCain-Feingold meant that small donors finally mattered in federal fundraising, and both parties built grassroots machines to harvest small donations. In 2004, the RNC took the initial lead in small donor fundraising, with Bush's bundler rodeo of "Pioneers," "Rangers," and "Mavericks."
But, of course, the small donor revolution went supernova with the 2008 Obama campaign, where hundreds of thousands of first-time donors clicked a button to donate $10, often on a repeat basis. In one of the proliferating ironies of this story, Sen. John McCain's signature achievement - the McCain-Feingold Act - was arguably the instrument that enabled the Obama small-donor fundraising landslide. Obama's fundraising strategy - social networking pages, virtual personalized fundraising thermometers, and blast emails urging supporters to give $5 to "Fight the Smears" - could only have flourished in a fundraising arena where unregulated soft money did not swamp "hard money" donations subject to strict contribution limits.
Now, apparently conceding that it cannot hope to match Obama's small-donor fundraising prowess, the RNC wants to change the rules of the game to let soft money flow back in. Just days after the election, on November 13, 2008, the RNC filed suit to overturn McCain-Feingold, putting poor John McCain in the unenviable position of having to defend his own law against a challenge by his own party.
The RNC's challenge is based on a radical new reading of Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to regulate federal elections. The RNC takes an extremist view of this clause, arguing that Congress has the power to regulate only activities "unambiguously related to the campaign of a particular federal candidate" without violating the First Amendment. Thus, according to the RNC's reading, Congress would have no power to regulate political party expenditures on elections in which both federal and state candidates appear on the ballot, or to regulate other expenditures such as redistricting, which arguably does not relate to a particular election. For example, in New York in 2010, races for the governorship and for the U.S. Senate will take place in the same year. If the RNC prevails, a soft money donor could give $1 million to register Republican voters and to fund Republican get-out-the-vote efforts in New York, but the RNC could claim that those expenditures aren't "unambiguously related to the campaign" of the senatorial candidate.
It's obvious that this loophole would swallow the law, and the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that Congress has the power to combat corruption of federal elected officials. Indeed, the three-judge panel treated the RNC's legal arguments with well-deserved skepticism. But now, as with the hotly anticipated Citizens United case, which is scheduled for reargument after Labor Day, opponents of reform appear to be betting that the Supreme Court will change course and usher in a new era of campaign finance deregulation.
For campaign finance reformers, the RNC lawsuit is particularly exasperating because reformers had thought the soft-money fight had already been won. In the 2003 case McConnell v. FEC, a consolidated decision in which RNC had been a plaintiff, the Supreme Court had upheld the soft-money ban by a 5-4 vote, in which Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had written part of the majority opinion. Now that Justice Samuel Alito has replaced O'Connor, the RNC is taking another bite at the apple.
It's a bizarre time for the RNC to be arguing that it needs to be taking more - not less - money from corporate interests. Just last week, Public Citizen released a report showing that bailed-out banks have spent $6 million in federal campaign contributions since the election. If the soft money ban is lifted, we can expect these figures to increase exponentially, for special interest domination of federal politics to attain new heights, and for the small donor revolution to face extinction.
Monica Youn is an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
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Lobbying rules also need to change--an industry does have a right to educate politicians about the consequences of votes, which the lawmakers tend not to understand very well, but at the same time, the public has a right to insist that the public welfare be the primary goal.
Public financing for elections--well, that is a pretty dangerous swamp; maybe all soft money could be banned and only small-donors allowed.
The only thing that would solve this is to eliminate all private funding of candidates - regardless of what they were running for. No big or little donors - only general taxpayer funding. And the public airwaves (tv & rado, computer, whatever) would be free to all legitimate candidates. Then no more lopsided lobbying - everyone's lobby would essentially be equal.
It will be hard to tell people they can't spend money helping a candidate they like, and I don't think tapping the public purse for electioneering is a great idea (who decides who is a legitimate candidate and what are allowable expenditures).
I do think that free air time makes sense. The government grants the tv and radio frequencies and could ask for free time in return.
If both the incumbant and the challenger in every federal office were given the average amount of money spent on those elections by the federal government to pay for campaigning, the expenditure would be smaller than any department of the government.
Seriously, it would just be a few billion dollars, we would save more than that cutting out a boondoggle plane that can't fight in a combat zone (or near navy ships, or above a microwave oven...). If this is repealed, it is finally time for public funding of elections. The corporations can still try to pay enough to brainwash folks, but having $200 million vs 102 million is a much more even race than $100 million vs 2 million...
Where are Republicans going to get money to fight elections if their membership is declining and subliterate?
LOl this in support of the party who wants to changes the rules as they go again in Massachusetts where the democrats want to take away the rights & votes of the people by allowing the democrat governnor to name Kennedy's replacement even temporarily after Kennedy & Kerry & the rest of the democrats were the ones who changed it to prevent a then republican governor from being able to name even a temporary replacement. Can't call foul against republicans while supporting the democrats who also do it. THe party of flip floppers and issue avoiders & socialists. Vote all republicans & democrats out.
This is not good.
Can Congress counter punch by requiring majority vote of shareholders to approve donations to political parties or PACs by corporations?
After all it is our money.
Great idea.
I would love that, especially after Republicans challenged union donations.
It will go 5-4 in the RNC/corporate interest controlled Supreme Court. Remember, they don't count as activist judges if they're conservatives, then they're "traditionalists" or "originali
They better not take away my civil liberty to donate to whatever or whomever I choose. It is my money and I have a right to back who I want for president. This would be a Rep. thing. After all the last 8 years they have worked at taking other civil liberties away.
Unfortunatly the issue is not whether the citizens can make minor donations, but whether big corporations can make million dollar donations to make our efforts meaningless. The RNC wants to allow Exxon to make million dollar campaign contributions again.
Good work. Scary, but eye-opening. Thanks.
Obviously McCain thought he would be running against Hillary when he pushed the bill through. Whatever gets them there in the first place they will not remain in this position if they push something down too many peoples throats they don't want to swallow. No large amount from a few or a multitude of small amounts from the masses will allow them to survive if they do so.
You know, why don’t we just elect the lobbyists and let them appoint Congress and the Administration and be done with it.
Don't want to live in THAT country. I at least like the illusion of a possible middle man of checks and balances.
In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be....
.....ROLLE
Jonathan!
Jonathan!
Jonathan!
Need to outlaw lobbyists they are a determent to America.
Eliminate Corporation's citizen status. Make them what they are, only business.
Cap corporate donations, and outlaw lobbyist "Gifts" and "Contributions"!
We have seen what just over a billion in insurance lobbyist cash does to congress, they throw their constituents under the bus tp please their corporate owners.
If they pull this off, we're scr ewed, may as well give them the keys to the capitol. Of course, we probably already are anyway.
The sad thing is you KNOW some American zombies will be riled up to support the repeal of Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Even though corporate personhood literally threatens the well being of humans and other living creatures as well as Earth itself.
oh yeah, Joey Blue Collars will be standing at the next town hall, neck veins bulging green, face straining red, as he screams: "LET THE CORPORATE SOFT MONEY IN!!!!"
The sad, sad reality is that he will be doing so with his pink slip in his pocket!
He will be standing up for the corporation's rights to own all of us!
Maybe this could create such outrage that we add another amendment to the Constitution that would severely limit the right of corporations (including any type of political persuasion).
You'll never get it to pass, We don't own our representatives, Corporations do. Maybe it's time to push for term limits.
The residents of a state can do term limits. All they need to do is vote the person out.
As I've mentioned before, terms limits would simply mean perpetual preening and campaign mode. (That is even more so than is being done currently).
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