Professor Lawrence Lessig discusses his new book “Republic, Lost” and our need to attack systemic corruption perpetuated through the lobbyist system.
Talk about an idea whose time has come.
Today, the Fair Elections Now Act is being re-introduced. Actor Alec Baldwin, who was present at the bill’s introduction, told CNN it was a critical step toward “reducing the influence of corporate lobbyists and special interest money.”
Alec is right. The bill would help candidates remain free from corporate interests by providing public money for their campaigns if they raise a certain amount of small-dollar contributions from voters.
The grip that corporations have over our elections and our lawmakers is unprecedented, thanks in no small part to the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That’s the decision that gave corporations the green light to spend as much money as they want on elections.
What does that decision mean for you? It means that lawmakers are even more beholden to wealthy corporate interests — oil and coal companies, financial giants, agribusiness mega-companies and so forth — and even less likely to act in your interests. After all, those corporations are looking out for their bottom lines and have no problem rolling over citizens to boost profits. They want public policies that advance that goal. They give money to lawmakers so they can ask for favors later.
We saw the effect of the Citizens United decision on the midterm elections: spending by outside groups jumped to $294.2 million in the 2010 election cycle from just $68.9 million in the 2006 cycle. Nearly half of the money spent came from just 10 groups. Two groups formed by Republican strategist Karl Rove combined to spend $38.2 million, more than any single group. Next was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Today, Public Citizen sent a letter to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who introduced the measure. The letter said: [Read more]
This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will, as I previously wrote, likely determine the constitutional bounds of public campaign financing programs across the country. In that case, McComish v. Bennett, the Court will rule on whether it is legal to provide publicly financed candidates with additional public funds when they are faced with heavy spending by privately financed opponents or independent expenditure groups.
Those arguing that the law is unconstitutional claim that Arizona’s public financing law impermissibly limits the speech (in this case spending equals speech) of privately financed candidates and independent third party spenders because those individuals or groups know that their act of spending money will trigger a public financed candidates ability to get more money. Put another way, petitioners claim that if privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups know that if they spend money, a publicly financed candidate will get more public funds, then they may chose not to spend that money at all.
First, there’s dubious evidence that privately financed candidates and independent expenditures groups have in fact opted not to spend money under Arizona’s public financing law. Even if political actors think twice before spending money, that does not mean that their speech is severely burdened. Second, petitioners seem to suggest that Arizona enact a less efficient public campaign financing system. Among other reasons, Arizona created a public financing system with a so-called “trigger” provision because it allows publicly funded candidates to have enough money to remain competitive, while preserving public funds by not wasting money on candidates who do not need additional public funds. This, for instance, is preferable to a public financing program which just provides candidates with a huge lump sum grant, whether they need the money or not. [Read more]
Here is an important NYTimes editorial on Arizona’s campaign finance system, which has been ludicrously — and perilously — challenged by the right; and the Roberts Court has (of course) played along, suspending the key law within that system. Will they restore it? That case is before them now (with the Brennan Center arguing for reinstatement of the law).
Even if the Court does do the right (and therefore unexpected) thing, however, Arizona still has many miles to go before it has elections fit for a democracy. Beyond all questions of campaign finance, there’s also the essential matter of the state’s notoriously shady voting system. That too must be overhauled (like all our voting systems nationwide), or else the campaign finance laws won’t make much difference even if they’re absolutely perfect. (The group doing most to right the voting system in that state is AUDITAZ, at
http://audit-az.blogspot.com/.)
But it’s still necessary to resist the right’s attempt(s) to push the campaign finance system back to those dark days when Richard Nixon could take heaps of secret cash from interested millionaires, including mobsters, former (?) fascists and the generals who ran Brazil and Greece.
Former Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor recently appeared to come to a similar conclusion about the majority decision reached by their former colleagues in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Committee earlier this year: it was a “mistake.”
In an interview between the two in Newsweek, Stevens, who stood on the dissenting side of Citizens United, characterized the final decision in the case as a failure that he would like to see readdressed:
O’Connor: I suppose the court has had occasion to change its view on certain issues over a period of years. Do you see any on the horizon that you think the court might well reexamine as things go on?Stevens: Well, you know, Sandra, I dissented in a lot of cases, and I’d like [the court] to reexamine them all [laughs]. I don’t expect them to, but I think they made a serious mistake in the [Citizens United] campaign-finance case, in which they overruled the portion of an opinion you and I jointly authored [on the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law]. And I think you might share my view. [Read more]
The intense focus placed on the money being spent in the 2010 elections has had an unexpected impact within the small the world of campaign finance reformers. While the delicate system of fundraising constraints born in the wake of Watergate has crumbled — allowing for the unprecedented flow of corporate and even anonymous funds — the chaos has also created a modicum of opportunity. The current climate, campaign finance reformers say, may be one of the most opportune moments to spur the reform of the system.
“This is a crisitunity,” said Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that reports on money in politics. “This may be the beginning of the post Citizens United chapter in history which replaces scrutiny and limits with emphasis on free speech. And that might bolster a passionate response from the public to strengthen and reinvigorate disclosure and even limits to try and counter what the courts have done.” [Read more]