Money in politics has nearly destroyed our democracy. Image courtesy of http://www.freepik.com/
Politics is corrupt
I don't have to tell people here that American politics is broken. We all have a sense that our representatives do not listen to their constituents. In a landmark paper, Gilens and Page clearly demonstrated this disconnect. They looked at thousands of political issues to see what groups wanted them and whether the government passed laws to address them. Figure 1 from their paper demonstrates this.
Figure 1a from Gilens and Page. For the average citizen, the probability of adoption of a policy (left y-axis) does not increase as the percent favoring a policy change (x-axis) increases.
For the average citizen, the probability of adopting a policy does not change as the percentage of people favoring a policy increases. We can see this clearly in the inaction of our government on many popular policies. Two-thirds of Americans want a minimum wage increase, over 70% think workers should have paid family leave, over 80% want sensible regulation on guns, and 61% think abortion should be legal in all/most cases. Yet Congress does nothing.
Figure 1b. For the economic elites, the probability of adoption of a policy (left y-axis) increases as the percent favoring a policy change (x-axis) increases.
The story is entirely different for the economic elites. As the percentage of wealthy individuals wanting a policy increases, its likelihood of passing increases. One needs to look no further than the massive Bush tax cuts, which provided a windfall of $570,000 over eight years for the top 1%. The Trump tax cuts were a boon to corporations, massively cutting their tax liability. Our energy infrastructure is stuck in fossil fuels while the rest of the world works to transition to cleaner energy. The elites get what they want, while the average American gets nothing. But why?
We all know why. Thom Hartmann did a masterful job describing the problem in a recent article, and I won't repeat it here. However, I do dispute one thing: it's not just a GOP problem. It's a systematic problem. Too many democrats depend on monied interests to get elected. I understand it's the rules of the game. In our current system, politicians need vast sums of money to get elected, and they take most of that money from the wealthy and corporations. Of course, they are going to listen to their donors.
Money must go
We need to change the system. We need to get money out of politics, but how? We could try to pressure Congress to enact laws that limit the amount of money in politics. First, this would be asking the people who benefit from the current system to change the current system—a doubtful proposition. Second, the Supreme Court would probably strike down any campaign finance law as they have done so many times in the past.
Much of this mess traces back to the Supreme Court. In 1971, Lewis Powell wrote a corporate manifesto for taking over the government, which has become so infamous it is referred to as the Powell memo. It was a reaction to the activist work of Ralph Nadar and others. The Powell memo became a blueprint for changing the course of American politics, by creating think tanks to influence politics and lobbyist groups to represent corporate interests in Washington. Nixon appointed Powell to the Supreme Court and from there he and other pro-corporate justices handed numerous gifts to corporations. The Court’s disastrous rulings from Buckley vs. Valeo in 1976 through Citizens United in 2010 has opened the floodgates to money in politics. This money comes from corporate lobbyists and wealthy individuals, and is the source of their undue influence.
It would seem natural to then work to change the court back to represent the people and have them reverse these decisions. With the present court, it will take decades to replace the justices who made these rulings. Even if we did appoint enough judges or packed the court, we then have to hope they would change the ruling, and even if they did, a future court could reverse it later. Changing the Supreme Court is not a permanent solution.
Can we look to the parties to get money out of politics? Sadly, both parties have lost their way. The GOP was seduced long ago by the lure of money and has been the party of big business and corporations for many years. Recently, former Alabama Representative Mo Brooks laid it out in plain terms. To be chair of a top level committee in the House of Representative comes with a million dollar price tag. The same is true in the Senate. If you want a leadership position, it costs even more money. Where do they get that money? Their donors.
And friends, we need to also face the truth. Too much of the Democratic Party has also fallen victim to the lure of corporate cash to the point that the former Speaker of the House is one of the top fundraisers for her party. Nancy Pelosi became so influential because she could share this cash with her colleagues. Monied interests gave her even more cash because she was the Speaker. Do you think she will listen to her donors or the people who elected her? It's the same for almost every politician.
Maybe the political winds are changing, and if we elect people who are less corrupt, they will resist the temptation of money and do what the people want. But any politician elected today will be playing by the rules in place today. It's nearly impossible to win if you don't take corporate money. If you do, you will listen to your donors or risk losing their financial support. Yes, there are rare examples where the people have beaten the odds and elected Representatives or Senators without big campaign donors, but they are the exception, not the rule. Even if you get elected without corporate money, the pressure from your colleagues and legacy media to be a team player makes it extremely difficult to fight back on economic issues. Also, don’t forget that legacy media is a prime beneficiary of all this cash in the form of campaign advertisements.
While we should always work to elect good representatives, it won't be enough to change the course of American politics.
The solution
Before proposing a solution, we need to clearly define the change we want.
We want a government responsive to the will of the people. To achieve this goal, we must get money out of politics.
Good-intentioned people have tried to rein in the influence of money in politics for decades, but the problem has only worsened over time. The only permanent solution to this problem is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution. One path is by a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress. The other path involves two-thirds of the states calling for a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments. Congress will never vote to end the flow of money that got them elected. We will have to force them to do it by going through the states.
Getting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a large mountain to climb. Many pundits today would say it's impossible to do because the current system benefits elected officials. Politicians will never change it. However, U.S. citizens of the 19th century faced a similar problem. Let me tell you a story about the 17th Amendment.
In the original Constitution, Senators were not directly elected by the people. Instead, state legislatures voted for Senators to the U.S. Congress. Being elected by state legislatures is a process ripe for corruption. By the late 19th century, bribery and political pressure made the Senate a "millionaires club" serving private interests. Even worse, if the houses of the state legislature were split between the two parties, the selection process would deadlock, leaving Senate seats vacant for years. Sound familiar? State legislatures passed laws to try to beat back corruption in the Senate selection process, but moneyed interests always found a way to circumvent it. Similar to today, Congress, including the Senate, was never going to change the process.
States began voting for an Article V convention in response to this inaction. Between 1890 and 1905, thirty-one state legislatures passed resolutions either calling on Congress to pass an amendment providing for the direct election of senators or to hold a conference with other states to work on such an amendment. As the states approached the 2/3 needed to force a convention, it put pressure on Congress, and they proposed the Amendment themselves. They were prodded into action!
You might say times were different between then and now, and I would agree. In 1890, there were few phones, no cars, no television, and no internet. Yet, the people were able to organize to change the Constitution. We have much better tools of communication, and it should be much easier to organize! In many ways, times are eerily similar. Large monopolies came about during the Industrial Revolution, and by 1900, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and J.P. Morgan controlled large sections of the economy. They directly bribed politicians to get their way and enforced their will on the people through their vast economic power. The political unrest of the late 19th century spawned the progressive movement and the rise of labor unions. It would take 32 years and the great depression before the people beat back the influence of the elites. But they did! We can too.
Every generation of Americans has changed the Constitution. It is now our turn to take on the great political crisis facing America today and set us back onto a path leading to free and fair elections. Part of that effort must be getting money out of politics. If you want to be part of history, come join us as Wolf-PAC. (Wolf-PAC is not a Political Action Committee. It is a non-partisan group of volunteers working to get money out of politics. )
Check out the Wolf-PAC website to learn more about our effort.
If you're ready to join, fill out the volunteer form.
