The purpose of big money in politics is self-dealing at the top
Perchance a dream, no wait - a video
Yesterday morning, I found myself watching a TEDtalk video featuring Larry Lessig, noted professor of law at Harvard University. While researching this article I found his bio and a passage within that I found to be fascinating:
He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Lessig serves on the Board of the AXA Research Fund, and on the advisory boards of Creative Commons and the Sunlight Foundation. (links mine)
interesting. Lessig is someone I consider to be a progressive, yet he's actually clerked for two rather conservative judges. I now have a greater appreciation for his range of views in American politics.
Back to that TEDtalk where he discusses American politics. In it, Lessig provides some insight into how a tiny minority, 0.02%, decide who shows up in the general election each fall. For comparison, he illustrates with alarming precision, how 0.02% of the people in Hong Kong decided who got on the ballot a few years ago. Then he shows how 0.02% of the American people maxed out their contribution limits to political campaigns and how they have effective control over the political process.
I like to think of Larry Lessig as one of the unsung heroes in politics for the reason that he goes right to the heart of the matter: money. Name any problem you want to solve in America and you will find that it's not a question of political will of the people. It's a question of whether the people with the money want it that way or not. We know this because in that video, he cites a study (also one of my favorite), "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens", which shows that Congress pretty much does whatever the money tells them to do.
Boss Tweed
I think we can safely say that Boss Tweed (also prominently featured in Larry's TEDtalk) would be proud of the way things are run right now. Here's a great quote to give you a sense of what Boss Tweed was like:
"I don't care who does the election, as long as I get to do the nominating"
What we have now is not a democracy, or even a democratic republic. We now live in a system that is not responsive to the people. It is only responsive to the Tweeds, the very people who believe that money = merit.
I can recall reading numerous articles about Citizens United immediately after the decision was handed down and for years thereafter while researching articles on the topic of money and politics. While most of the furor over big money in politics is about Citizens United, it should be noted the Citizens United decision was one of a long string of decisions in the courts to allow power to be concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few. Those decisions allowed America to fall further into the oligarchy that it is today. Wikipedia describes Citizens United on their page about the same case, as follows:
The Citizens United ruling "opened the door" for unlimited election spending by corporations, but most of this spending has "ended up being funneled through the groups that have become known as super PACs."[138] Critics predicted that the ruling would "bring about a new era of corporate influence in politics," allowing companies and businesspeople to "buy elections" to promote their financial interests. Instead large expenditures, usually through "Super PACS," have come from "a small group of billionaires", based largely on ideology. This has shifted power "away from the political parties and toward the ... donors themselves. In part, this explains the large number and variety of candidates fielded by the Republicans in 2016."[138] The ability of individuals to spend unlimited sums was first affirmed by the Supreme Court, however, not in Citizens United, but in Buckley v. Valeo, decided in 1976.
Even the courts have acknowledged that political power has shifted from the political parties to the billionaires. I recall in other cases how the courts saw no "quid pro quo", that unless there was a clear showing of political favors for money, that there should be no prior restraint on the amount of money that can be contributed to a SuperPAC in support of a candidate. It seemed then, that the courts thought that unless plaintiffs could show intent, there was was no cause of action.
Money, influence and self-dealing
What is often missing from the discussion about Citizens United is that once big money gets its foot in the door, there is no going back. Once politicians accept that money and start moving policy to the right (big money almost always moves it to the right), then its not just the laws. They go after the courts and select right wing judges. They stack the administration and "independent" commissions to the right. In a generation or two, the liberal voice can be almost completely silenced at the highest levels of government.
With the election of Trump, we are now witnessing self-dealing, in bold, broad daylight. This administration is stacked with millionaires and billionaires who are completely convinced that money = merit. These same people claim to be meritocratic. In other words, they want to be measured by their merit, their performance.
Yet, these same people will use their influence in government to limit the power of unions, and they would outlaw them completely if they could. Unions are a free market response to really awful players in the market. We wouldn't have unions if employers thought of employees as something more than cogs in a wheel.
The people at the top are also using the trade deficit to enrich themselves. Yes, most people are focused on the budget deficit, but what really matters is the trade deficit. Why? The trade deficit represents demand that is going to other countries. The loss of that demand impairs the bargaining power of labor. The trade deficit is a result of public policy choices, not economics. We know this because doctors and lawyers don't have a problem with foreign competition. Shouldn't they feel the same pressure that the autoworkers feel?
A subtle disenfranchisement
In a sense, the current political climate, where the average person has so little influence on public policy amounts to disenfranchisement on a massive scale. The top 0.02% decide who we get to vote for in the general election, creating a walled garden of candidates that will only lend an ear to very wealthy, very entrenched interests. If the average person has no say in who he votes for, that's a very clear, but very subtle form of disenfranchisement.
Lessig's answer to this problem is the Citizen Equality Act, a mashup of existing proposals designed to bring about fairness in our elections. Here is what the Citizen Equality Act would provide for:
The Citizen Equality Act would provide for:
- Equal freedom to vote. Strike down often-racist voter ID laws and allow all Americans to vote freely.
- Equal representation. End the crazy gerrymandering that let's politicians pick their own districts and makes elections non-competitive.
- Citizen funding of elections. Reduce big-money influence with public matching funds that makes a $100 donation from a teacher just as valuable as a $700 donation from a lobbyist.
The Citizen Equality Act would restore the intent of The Framers of the Constitution as described in The Federalist Papers, no. 52 and 57, to require that Congress shall be dependent on the people alone, not the rich more than the poor. The Framers of the Constitution were aiming for a society without royalty. The Tweeds of this country seek the opposite, to be worshiped and obeyed, and to impose their will upon the rest of us, reminding us once again as John Adams observed that, "Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak."