Wow! I just read Constance Hilliard's diary How FOX News (Accidentally) Blew Up the GOP, and couldn't help but smile. Unintended consequences sure do make things interesting. Reading the diary made me think of a segment I saw on The Cycle yesterday afternoon, about the unintended consequences of the Citizens United decision that was pointed out when Josh Barro was a guest during a panel discussion.
Conventional wisdom has been that Citizens United was a bad decision for injecting too much money into our political system because it gave one side a lopsided advantage over the other. Of course we always thought that it was Republicans gaining an even larger financial advantage over Democrats. So wrapped up in the us against them scenario it never occurred to me to step back and think about what all that money was going to do power struggles within the GOP.
The panel started out discussing how gerrymandering and the hyper-partisanship of the Tea Party have played a part in the current political battles in Washington. The segment ended with a discussion about the role of money and started with Touré excerpting a small quote from the following piece from Tuesday:
Parties have less control over their members: One, the national parties and congressional leaders have less control over their rank-and-file than they used to. And there’s one basic reason why: money. Part of it is because of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform, which eliminated the practice of the parties being able to collect six- and seven-figure “soft money” donations. So when political parties stopped being the main source for cash, that was step one in the decentralizing of the parties. Another part has been earmark reform, which took away the ability of leaders and committee chairman to dangle goodies to get votes. (Think Boehner could have more control over his caucus if he could promise a $10 million bridge in that member’s district?) And a third part was the recent Citizens United decision, which allowed outside groups (and individuals) to have as much fundraising/ad-spending power as the parties. Think about it: Outside special-interest groups like Heritage Action and Club for Growth have much more power over individual members than the Republican National Committee does. And whenever Democrats lose control of the White House, you can see how that party could splinter like the GOP has here, too. First Thoughts: How we got here, First Read, 8 Oct 2003.
I thought it was interesting to learn that
Citizens United had unintended consequences, and so I transcribed the end of the segment and provided the video below the orange squiggly.
Touré: But let me get you to talk about one of the key sort of underlying structural reasons of why we are here. We’ve talked about gerrymandering. We’ve talked about hyper-partisanship. We haven’t talked a lot about money and how campaign finance has changed over the last few decades leading to the situation we’re in now. First read had a whole little bit about this the other day saying that the relationship to lawmakers and parties financially has led to the decentralization that we’re seeing where the far-right of the Party says I don’t need to listen to you.
On screen: Outside special-interest groups like Heritage Action and Club for Growth have much more power over individual members than the Republican National Committee does. First Thoughts: How we got here, First Read, 8 Oct 2003.
Gone are the days of earmarks where a Speaker could say, Hey we’re going to put a bridge in your district and go along with us on this other thing that might be hard for you electorally. Gone are the days where the RNC are the biggest financial source of your life. Heritage and Club for Growth are bigger financial sources for a lot of these Representatives. That is a very dangerous trend, isn’t it, for the GOP and a big reason why the far right is saying “I don’t need to listen to the leadership.” And they are actually leading the establishment.
Josh Barro: I think it is a dangerous trend for Republicans and I think there’s kind of an irony here where liberals have been so upset about the Citizens United decision and all the money it’s injected into politics. But I think the main outcome from Citizens United is that it has caused the Republican Party to tear itself apart because of the way that the new money dynamics are influencing the Party. But I think the other reason you’re seeing that is that business interests that traditionally have been associated with the Republican Party; they’re unhappy about what Republicans are doing right now but they’re not really willing to line up against them for it.
Krystal Ball: They’re not stepping up to the plate.
Josh Barro: And the question I’m asking …
Touré: They’re speaking out …
Josh Barro: They’re speaking out, but I’m wondering at what point does the Democratic Party become the Party of the northeastern business establishment. You know, for 160 years as the Republican Party has gone through changes it has always been the Party of wealthy northeastern business interests.
Abby Huntsman: And if that’s not a further wake up call to Republicans, then I don’t know what is.
Touré: I don’t want to go further down the rabbit hole to find out what else lies in a post Citizens United world. And what other changes will come out of it. That sounds really frightening.
Josh Barro: Yeah, I think what’s happening right now is really frightening. I think Republicans should be frightened too. Not just for the country, but for the future of their own party. They think they’re protected by this electoral map in the House, but if they lost the national popular vote in the House by say 6 points, they would lose the majority. And I think that’s possible.
CLICK HERE to watch the entire segment.