"It's not about what the public wants. It's about money...and nothing will change...until the money-lenders are tossed out of the temple, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government -- the one that reads: "For sale."
--Bill Moyers, July 10, 2009 Bill Moyers Journal, PBS
The Journal that night presented an eyewitness account of the abuses that profit-hooked health insurance companies commit against the rest of us every day. But Moyers chose to close the show with the quote above for a reason - money is the root of most political evil.
It was maybe the 15th time I've heard this champion of democracy link huge corporate/special interest contributions for politicians with America's devolution: the economic crisis, climate change, foreign relations catastrophes, the denial of civil/human rights, preemptive wars, the enmeshment of church and state, et al. Barely-regulated election funding is not the only cause, but it's right up there.
Who isn't tempted by the siren song of big donors? Their cash paves the way for electoral triumph and its accompanying power and success. They supply a credible rationale for supporting self-serving issues and opposing those that threaten; they sometimes even draft the laws they want passed.
Add politicians' overweening egos to this toxic alchemy and you get more than 500 electeds -- nationally at least -- who know they're right, enjoy their privileged lives, and want to stick around as long as possible. To do that, they have to keep scrounging for re-election money and scrambling to keep their patrons happy while simultaneously chasing new backers; and, oh yeah, maybe trying to squeeze in a bit of time for ordinary voters.
As part of the HuffPo Citizen Journalism Eyes & Ears Health Care Investigative Unit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/healthcare-investigative-unit-registration_n_219023.html, I've been trolling the web to learn how campaign donations by health-related corporations and lobbyists may be influencing lawmakers' votes. My research isn't finished, so I won't draw final conclusions till it is.
But I have discovered that at least one of these legislators -- who used to advocate for government-provided health insurance -- now openly opposes a public health insurance option. This elected also happens to be raking in donations from some of the country's top health industry lobbyists and special interests.
To start fixing America, we must give elections back to voters. They need easy access to accurate information so they can evaluate all office seekers and issues fairly and independently. In an ideal world, this would mean guaranteeing all candidates the same resources to get their messages heard.
Since the Supreme Court has declared corporate/lobbyist/special interest donations a form of free speech, we can't, at least for now, ban elephantine contributions. But we can offer candidates the opportunity to run clean and fair.
Here's how: a candidate who agrees to limit his/her contributions from private supporters receives enough funding from a central public account to compete effectively against even wealthy privately-financed opponents. And before you start with the eye-rolling and the out loud "I can't believe...," comments--know this: it works!
Seven states and numerous cities and regions currently run some form of clean and fair elections. These programs enjoy support from multiple political parties and the unaffiliated.
Constituents and their reps also appreciate the new configurations, as articulated by William Mundell, who ran clean and won his race to become an Arizona Corporate Commissioner. "You have an opportunity to spend more time with voters," he says, "listening to their concerns, discussing issues and not hav(ing) to constantly be raising money up and through the time and after the election." Mundell is a Republican.
I've volunteered since 2000 to bring Clean Money to California after learning about it from Arianna Huffington, though it was called campaign finance reform back then. Last year our legislature passed a Fair Elections pilot project (hooray State Sen. Loni Hancock http://dist09.casen.govoffice.com/ ) and Governor Schwarzenegger signed it into law. (If state lawmakers were gonna do one perfect thing, I'm glad this was it!)
Now all (hah!) we need is to get 50% + 1of the California electorate to okay it next June (to overturn an old state initiative provision prohibiting public campaign financing). http://www.caclean.org/ To help, I joined the California Clean Money Campaign Speakers Bureau, and with an activist buddy, did my first group talk a few months ago.
For the entire US, the new Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826) http://www.publicampaign.org/ just made its successful Congressional debut at a hearing before the House Administration Committee http://cha.house.gov/view_hearing.aspx?r=55 Exciting possibilities shimmer...I'll have more about them in my next post, including how you can help.
Follow Wendy Block on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WendyJDec
I agree, after 40 years of political activism, that money is out of control and a big problem. However, it is still true that votes must be won and thus voter education and motivation can still outweigh pure corporate money. The problem is how difficult it is to get voters registered and to the polls-even in this last election, turnout stank compared to any civilized nation. We have systematically underfunded education for an entire generation-and it really shows! Of course, if you include the effects of the corporatization of the media on our politics, then the effect of money is even more obvious.
I agree with all the issues you raise. We have many problems to fix.
Clean Elections can't solve all of them, but once every state adopts this system and all of us voters & electeds see how much better our lives are (they have to improve over what we've got now!), we'll keep at our national reps till they pass US Clean $ campaign funding.
Then people will be eager to vote. We'll elect candidates who value education enough to fund it appropriately; and who understand the value of media regulation & appoint regulators with sufficient power to reform the media, and so on...
Again, I know creeps with money will always find or invent loopholes, but the system itself will be so much more transparent, crimes will be tougher to commit successfully. That's the hope, anyway.
Republcans don't have this problem. Their Reps will take absurd, insane positions, publicly humiliating themselves; Why? Because if they don't they kmow that they're toast the next primary. Granted Republicans aren't bright enough to actually make their Reps DO anthing meaningful for them. But they know better than to cross them -- unlike our Reps. Republican Reps are rightfully afraid of their constituents, everyones afraid of the lobbyists -- No one is afraid of us.
We win one election, defeat a handful of Republicans and if we don't get our way, immediately, we turn cannibal. Whatever strength we might have had in our temporary unity evaporates under the first rays of reality. And everyone knows this.
Our problem isn't financing, ours or lobbyists. Its that we play politics with the maturity and effectivemness of kintergardeners against seasoned professionals. We play way out of our class and refuse to develop and utilize the neccessary skills; preferring instead to ineffectually blame everyone and everything else for our consistant failures.
You're right that our Most Desperately Needed list has been headed by courage transfusions. Looks like at least some have been supplied and are taking effect-- witness last week's declaration by 60 + Dem Congresspeople that the only health reform bill they'll support must have a public insurance option.
Lots of activists are giving campaign contributions to these reps, and the donation records are going to the Dem reps who've wimped out so far. Now they can see that constituents do not reward weakness and fear.
And as you point out about playing politics professionally, Dems/progressives/liberals-- choose your descriptor-- have been way behind. But we are studying & learning political martial arts. Our natural tendency is to reason with opponents, so we're having to adjust to winning in their claws out all the time reality.
But I do believe we may be evolving into scrappers, though there's lots more to do.
Looking forward to your further thoughts.
You've named possibly the only achievement more close to impossible than bringing Clean $ to our elections -- and you're so right!! It feels like we're working toward free/truthful media bit by bit, though. The HuffPo is one important forum for that. Your comment, keeping the issue out in front, is another step-- eventually all our cumulative efforts could make it happen.
"The issue is much broader. It's whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home. We end up severing as a mercenary enforcer state, hoping that others are going to pay us to smash up the world. Those are the choices. That's the choice that you have to face. The answer to those questions is very much in the hands of people like you and me."
Noam Chomsky, Media Control, Seven Stories Press, 2002
The term "bewildered herd" was invented by Walter Lippmann to refer to vast majority of Americans who were to be led by a special elite. Look at what’s happening now with what I call “the chicken little crowd” and how predictive that was. We need to establish a free and truthful media if we’re ever going to recover our democracy.