No need to blow the lid off a commonly understood political fact: Special interests use campaign contributions to pay for access to lawmakers, no matter which party, and they intend to win favorable policy through these "gifts."
It's not "blowing the lid off," it's looking inside and seeing that groups like Big Agriculture are already lining the pockets of prominent Democrats:
Agriculture now donates more to Dems amid farm-bill rewrite
Republicans have been receiving about twice as much from agriculture political action committees (PACs) as Democrats since 1994. But in the first quarter of 2007, such PACs gave more to Democrats than Republicans for the first time since the GOP secured control of the House after decades in the minority.
And what happened with the last farm bill? Among various pork bits were over $1 billion for people who don't farm at all. So it's no wonder that those groups are willing to spend a paltry few million this time around.
The question is what to do about it.
Big Ag sees nothing wrong with it and they make no secret about their intentions:
[Charlie] Stenholm, who now advises clients on the farm bill at Olsson, Frank and Weeda, said farm groups, like other special interests in Washington, make political contributions to gain access — and Democrats are now in power. "If you want to have access, that’s what you have to do, and there’s nothing inherently evil or wrong about that," Stenholm said.
No, no, of course, there's nothing "evil or wrong about that," Charlie. Except that most of us cannot make thousand-dollar contributions in order to "have access." And it's hard to trust the policies that come from a system that has the perception--if not the reality--of votes being bought and sold.
So I'll make no secret of my intentions: to pass the Durbin-Specter "Fair Elections Now Act," to create a voluntary system for full public financing of Congressional races, and to empower lawmakers to ignore the well-heeled lobbyists when they come knocking with a check in hand and a request for yet another pork barrel earmark for their clients.
Voters who clamored for reform and wanted their voice back won't be relieved to read headlines such as, "Money Rolls for Approps Democrats," either (okay, few regular voters read Roll Call and it's subscription only, but you get my point). Whether or not there's favorable policy being written for these groups--and history says that is and will continue to be the case--the perception of buying and selling policy is bad enough. The fact is that special interests still rule the day, and few lawmakers are likely to turn down campaign cash when it's so important.
We have a choice: we can live with a system that forces lawmakers to be fundraisers first, policy makers second, and has the government spending our tax dollars on billions of earmarks to industries who "have access."
Or we can change that system with public financing. States took the lead, as Maine and Arizona enacted voluntary full public financing reforms several cycles ago and have seen a new style of politics at work, in which lawmakers worry about the voters in their district and not their big campaign donors. Because they don't have any. Connecticut passed the same style of law, several other states have versions of full public financing, and Congress should employ the same system.
The special interests barely skipped a beat and started giving to Democrats--we need to battle back with "Fair Elections" so our lawmakers can do their jobs the way we want them to. Otherwise they're fundraisers first, lawmakers second, forced into a money chase that benefits the wealthy folks with all that access over the rest of us.
Cross posted on CommonBlog.