For my final lengthy post, I want to summarize the research that I have worked on this semester. Before January, I did not care for the topic of Campaign Finance Laws very much. In fact, I thought that it was stupid and a waste of time since there are federal elections only every two years or so. Boy was I wrong! This issue is one that is near and dear to my heart now and I do not plan on stopping my research anytime soon. Without further adieu, here is my research summary:
Imagine a world without politics. I don’t mean anarchy – which is the absence of government – I mean a world without the conniving, backstabbing nature of politicking; none of this “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” and cutthroat deal-making that happens every day all around the United States on the local, state and federal levels. Our political system has evolved over time into a money game; elected officials spend between 30 and 70% of their time fundraising for their next campaign or securing for themselves highly lucrative jobs in the lobbying sector. Our voices, opinions and hard-earned money are all part of a game that they play.
The reason behind this greed for power and money stems from the core of our electioneering system. In order to run in public elections, people must raise money – lots of it. Unless political hopefuls come from powerful families or are able to fundraise until the cows come home, it is very hard to even be considered for election. A quick way that candidates can raise major sums of money for a campaign is by gaining the favor of large donors such as wealthy individuals and corporations. Once in office, these politicians who accepted large donations on the campaign trail become a kind of puppet for the mega donors because they want to stay in good graces and keep their line of funding open. They sell their souls for campaign dollars. This is a major problem in our political system because this allows our politicians to be swayed in their decisions as not to upset their mega donors.
One of the main questions I found in campaign finance reform discussions was: “Where does all this money come from?” According to research done by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, 144,000 Americans, or 0.05% of the total population, gave the maximum allowed amount to any one federal candidate in the 2010 election cycle. Furthermore, 132 Americans donated 60% of the total money spent in that election cycle. These statistics show that a very small handful of Americans are the source of more than half of the money that is spent in political campaigns across the United States.
The money is funneled from personal contributions direct to candidates, political parties or PACs. The most powerful PACs in the United States thrive off of donations small and large, and the left and right are fairly competitive in their total numbers of dollars donated; the main difference is the size of donations garnered. The common trend is that Conservative labeled PACs and candidates are more likely to get fewer, large-scale donations from wealthy individuals and corporations than Liberal branded PACs and candidates, who get smaller, more numerous donations alongside large-scale donations.
A great deal of a representative’s campaign money comes from PACs, so they spend much time and effort staying in the PAC’s good graces. A study by the American Accounting Association concluded that committee speech and actions by members of Congress closely aligned with the principles of the PACs that gave campaign contributions.
When the framers of the Constitution created our republic, they intended it to be “dependent on the people alone.” When corporations are considered people in the funding game (thanks to Citizens United) that distances people from democracy and mutes their voices. In 2010, 78% of elected officials in Connecticut (from both political parties) gave up large campaign contributions and only accepted small-dollar donations. By doing so, those officials put the election back into the hands of the people and were still able to get elected to office. The difference between those who abolished massive donations and those who did not is this: the officials who did not take big money were dependent on the people alone – just like the framers intended our republic to work.
If this system worked in Connecticut, then why doesn’t the rest of the country adopt it and put the power back into the hands of the people? The solution is completely in the hands of our elected officials. Our political system thrives off of money and its power. Politicians live in an eat-or-be-eaten kind of world, and if they do not have similar funding to their opponents, their chances are slim. It is a vicious cycle that takes up time and money that could be spent fixing our nation’s major problems.
The Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics published a report that stated: “When a politician is influenced by either the need to solicit contributions from special interests to finance a costly election campaign, or by a sense of obligation to benefactors, the politician may no longer represent the interests of his or her entire constituency.” Our representatives do more to please donors and benefactors than they do to fight for the people who elected them in the first place. They are supposed to be our voices in our government, so why aren’t they fighting for us?
Lessig points out in his work that issues such as unemployment do not bring in as much campaign cash as issues that affect the richest of the rich and corporations like credit card swipe fees. When a representative votes in favor of corporations and the rich, they are more likely to receive major kickbacks in the form of donations and political capital than if they vote in favor of the working class. This is detrimental to our democracy because congressmen and women are more likely to spend their time working for those who can give them something real in return than those who can only afford to thank them with words.
The “one man, one vote” principle is lost when we allow influencing factors, such as money, to infiltrate our political system. Corporations matter more than constituents because they can write checks for the maximum donation limit while many people can barely make rent. Representatives no longer care about the people that they represent; they care about their bottom line.
After the Constitutional Convention, a woman in the street asked Benjamin Franklin what he brought, and he replied: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” The influence of money in our political system renders this republic dependent on the people alone unattainable until we stop focusing on capital gains and more on what we want and need from our government. Unless we the people take our government that the founding fathers created for us, their posterity, back from greedy politicians and the corporations that control them, we will not see change. We will, in fact, fall deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole until Uncle Sam and the “US of A” are literal ghosts of America past.
The famous author Mark Twain once wrote: “We have the best government that money can buy.” Twain died 100 years before Citizens United v. FEC was decided and I don’t think he could have been more correct in this statement.
Super PAC Woman 