Campaign Finance Op-Ed

There was a time in American history where the government worked for the wellbeing of all of its citizens. America accomplished many things; we established Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We passed important civil and voting rights bills and we built great things. The middle class was strong. But, beginning about 40 years ago, the way politics work in America started to change. Big money has now become a core part of the American political system, and it divides us and creates a gridlock in which even basic problems cannot be solved. The time for a constitutional amendment to limit the amount of money spent and raised to influence elections is now.

US campaign finance laws go back more than a hundred years. (washingtonpost.com) Various laws prohibited unions and corporations from directly contributing to candidates and their campaigns, and when the first PACs (Political Action Committees) were formed in response, their donations were also limited. In 1971, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which, combined with several amendments added later, strengthened campaign finance laws. This was soon challenged in the Supreme Court case Buckley v Valeo in 1976. That case upheld much of the law, but ruled that caps on the amount campaigns could spend and caps on independent expenditures were deemed unconstitutional.

The 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, worked to remedy this, but in the 2010 Citizens United v FEC case, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the McCain-Feingold Act, and allowed for the creation of super-PACs – “independent organizations that cannot donate to or coordinate with the candidate, but can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.” (washingtonpost.com)

The biggest problem with super PACs is that enormously wealthy donors overwhelmingly fund them. In 2010, only .000042% of the population, 132 people, contributed 60% of all Super-PAC expenditures. (infoplease.com)

Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard and a campaign finance expert, sees it the following way. There is one election that ultimately decides the representative: the general election. Before that, however, there is another “election:” A “donor election” in which a candidate must do well in order to have enough money to run a legitimate campaign. If a candidate doesn’t impress the donors, they will receive very little money from them to run in the general election. As such, the candidates have to appease, or “suck up” to the donors. This creates gridlock; if they vote against the wishes of their donors, the donors may choose not to support the candidate financially when reelection time comes. This creates an incredibly dysfunctional congress.

Opponents of campaign finance reform argue that donating money to support a candidate is free speech. And, that because super-PACs cannot coordinate with the candidate or his/her campaign, there is no corrupting influence. But the origin of the money is irrelevant when it drowns out the voices of average Americans. In fact, if donating money to a super PAC is free speech, then economic status determines the amount of free speech one has. Following that logic, my “free speech” is limited compared to the nearly unlimited “free speech” that wealthy donors have.

Nearly 80% of adults favor laws that limit the amount of money that a candidate can raise and spend. (gallup.com) Because the Supreme Court sees this activity as constitutional, we need to change the constitution. The amendment simply needs to state that “Congress shall have the power to regulate and set sensible limits on the raising and spending by candidates and others for the purpose of influencing elections. Congress shall have the power to enforce this amendment through appropriate legislation.”

Americans agree that the way in which campaigns are funded is a problem. Until we address this issue, our representatives will have a dependence on donors, not just us. Opponents would call this amendment an attack on free speech, but with current campaign laws, the free speech of ordinary Americans is drowned out by donors. Today, the unlimited amount of money that can be spent to influence elections represents a threat to our society. The results of a Princeton study that looked at public policy in the last 30 years concluded that, ‘”The preferences of economic elites have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.”’ (journals.cambridge.org) It doesn’t have to be this way. Until we solve this problem, we will not have a congress that works for the average American, and we will be not be able to solve the problems that we face.

Works Cited

washingtonpost.com 2014. “From George Washington to Shaun McCutcheon: A brief-ish history of campaign finance reform.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/03/a-history-of-campaign-finance-reform-from-george-washington-to-shaun-mccutcheon/

demos.org 2012. “Election Spending 2012: Post-Election Analysis Of Federal Election Commission Data” http://www.demos.org/publication/election-spending-2012-post-election-analysis-federal-election-commission-data

Journals.cambridge.org 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics:

Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?

Cnn.com 2012. “Where the money is: A Campaign Spending Primer” http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/politics/campaign-spending-primer

Infoplease.com 2014 “Campaign-Finance Reform: History and Timeline Campaign-Finance Reform: History and Timeline” http://www.infoplease.com/us /history/campaign -finance-reform-timeline.html#1940

Gallup.com “Half in U.S. Support Publicly Financed Federal Campaigns” http://www.gallup.com/poll/163208/half-support-publicly-financed-federal-campaigns.aspx