=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #426
—January 26, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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BIG-PICTURE ORGANIZING, PART 6: MONEY IN POLITICS
Nearly a decade ago, most grass-roots environmental activists
stopped trying to pass new laws. From a grass-roots perspective,
legislatures seem to be controlled by wealthy polluters who
aren’t about to pass tough laws to curb pollution.
Dumping pollution into the environment means using nature as a
toilet, and nature’s toilet is free. The polluter does not have
to pay for the resulting breast cancer, asthma, diabetes, lupus,
reduced IQ in children, diminished sperm count in men, and so
forth. Cause-and-effect is nearly impossible to establish in
cases of individual illness; therefore, the burden falls on
specific individuals and on the taxpaying public to pay the
inevitable costs of pollution, thus subsidizing the polluters,
who bank their ill-gotten gains. Under these circumstances,
polluters and their elected representatives in legislatures have
no real incentive to pass laws to curb pollution. In sum,
grass-roots activists have quit trying to pass new laws because
they see it as a waste of time.
The more traditional Washington-based environmental movement won
an early victory for pollution prevention in 1976 when Congress
killed the supersonic transport [SST] airplane proposal, in order
to protect the earth’s upper atmosphere. For nearly 20 years the
Washington-based enviros have been trying to reproduce that early
pollution-prevention victory, without success. Now things have
gotten so bad that the 15 largest Washington-based environmental
groups jointly issued a cry for help last summer, saying, “Even
during the Reagan/Watt/Gorsuch years, we have never faced such a
serious threat to our environmental laws in Congress. Polluters
have blocked virtually all of our efforts to strengthen
environmental laws, but still they are not satisfied. Now, they
are mounting an all-out effort to WEAKEN our most important
environmental laws.” [1] Since that time, the situation has
deteriorated further; with Mr. Gingrich strutting his stuff,
there seems to be no hope of passing effective new pollution
prevention laws in Washington.
Some people translate these harsh realities into “all government
is hopeless.” They thus join hands with the Libertarians who
seek to diminish all government as a matter of principle. (The
polluters can only celebrate this response; it eases their
public-relations task as it swells their treasuries.)
Most people, however, still recognize that there are some
legitimate purposes for government. Even people who are
completely committed to the “free market” can see that the market
encourages polluters to dump toxic “externalities” into nature’s
free toilet. (If the free market encouraged pollution reduction,
the market would have solved the pollution problem long before
1948 when Congress passed the first pollution control law.) [2]
The victims of pollution (those who get cancer, asthma, multiple
chemical sensitivity, lupus, etc.) need government to protect
them and their children from these glaring free-market failures.
How big does government need to be? Only big enough to protect
against the pollution hazards created by market failures. When
corporate polluters amass assets measured in trillions or
quadrillions of dollars, operate on a global scale, and dump
hundreds of billions of pounds of toxins into nature’s free
toilet each year, government needs to be very large indeed. (As
pollution diminishes, so can government.) Who will protect the
earth and its inhabitants against market failures if not the
people organized into governments?
Liberty is not the absence of government. Liberty is
self-government. And that is what we have lost during the past
100 years. Slowly and invisibly, government at all levels has
been taken over by a tiny minority of people who have organized
themselves in the corporate form and who have thus become far
wealthier and more powerful than the average. [3] Such people
tend not to represent all of us in their decisions. They tend to
represent their own narrow interests. In a nutshell, this is why
ordinary people find themselves unable to pass laws to curb
pollution. The polluters and their money are out of control.
It is time for everyone who opposes pollution –grass-roots
activists, workers, the chemically sensitive and the chemically
injured, environmentalists in Washington, and anyone favoring
reduced taxes and reduced health-care costs –to confront this
problem head on. It is time to campaign to get money out of
politics. (It is also time for a national debate on what to do
about the real root of these problems –the corporate form –but
we leave that discussion for another day.)
A new pamphlet, just published, clearly describes the problem of
money in politics, and offers real, affordable solutions. [4] THE
WEALTH PRIMARY, subtitled CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING AND THE
CONSTITUTION, argues that money is now so influential in
elections that it deprives ordinary citizens of a voice in
government and thus violates the principles of
one-person-one-vote, popular election, and meaningful political
equality that make up American constitutional democracy.
Further, THE WEALTH PRIMARY argues persuasively that the present
system violates the equal protection clause of the constitution
and is thus illegal. A lawsuit has been filed in the state of
New York on these grounds [5]–the opening salvo in a legal and
political struggle that may take a decade or more, but which
seems essential to win if we are to take back our democracy from
the polluters.
Plainly put, here is the problem: The current electoral system is
rigged for the benefit of wealthy candidates or those who can
raise money from the wealthy, leaving us without candidates who
really represent the middle class, working people, and the poor.
Long before the political parties select their nominees and
voters cast their ballots, long before the vast majority of
citizens have focused on upcoming elections, candidates compete
in a critically important phase of the modern electoral process:
THE WEALTH PRIMARY. The person who collects the most money –the
“winner” of the wealth primary –almost always captures his or
her party’s nomination. Then, in the election, the person who
raises the most money wins nearly 90% of the time. In 1992, 86%
of U.S. Senate candidates who outspent their opponents in the
wealth primary went on to win the election. In the U.S. House of
Representatives, 89% of the wealth primary winners went on to
victory at the ballot box.
There are four kinds of participants in the wealth primary: 1)
incumbents (people already holding elected office); 2)
millionaire challengers; 3) challengers not wealthy enough to
bankroll their own campaigns but financially secure enough to
campaign full-time for private contributions from others; and 4)
non-affluent citizens who cannot afford to subsidize their own
campaigns or to campaign full-time.
Incumbents are subsidized by taxpayers and thus are given a
tremendous advantage over challengers. In the first place, U.S.
Senators and Representatives are paid $133,600 each year; on top
of that, each member of Congress receives more than a million
dollars for mailing expenses, newsletters, telephone, computer
systems, fax machines, legislative and administrative assistants,
interns, press secretaries, and travel budgets. Many members who
chair committees end up with millions more that they can spend on
their own re-election campaigns.
During an election, the average House member spends more than
$170,000 on postage (free, courtesy of the American taxpayer),
most of it spent mailing out newsletters that trumpet the
members’ accomplishments. Between 1991 and 1992, the average
House member spent more on mailing to constituents than the
challenger was able to spend on his or her ENTIRE CAMPAIGN. Thus
the system unfairly subsidizes those who already hold office.
Incumbents are in a position to influence legislation now, and
they are very likely to be returned to power. So private money,
seeking influence, flows into their campaign coffers. In 1992,
the average House incumbent had $692,000 to spent, compared to
$155,000 for their challengers.
This is the crux of the problem: Congress is elected with money
raised from wealthy people. As a result, Congress is far more
responsive to the political interests of the wealthy and often
acts to the detriment of those left out of the wealth primary.
As political campaign costs and expenditures have soared in the
last two decades, the non-affluent majority has steadily lost
economic ground, while wealthy individuals and corporations have
been greatly enriched. A government drenched in campaign cash
has allowed working people to sink. (See REHW #409, #419, #421,
#422.)
The solution to these problems is public financing of election
campaigns, to level the playing field and allow political
candidates to compete on the merits of their ideas, not on their
ability to raise money from the wealthy. Public financing of
elections would cost each taxpayer between $5 and $10 per year.
This seems a small price to pay for regaining control of our
democracy. Those who think it is too expensive should remember
that Congress voted to bail out the savings and loan industry
with taxpayer funds to the tune of $500 billion. That is enough
money to finance all federal elections for more than 1000 years.
As we have seen, incumbents already have their re-election
campaigns publicly financed by taxpayer subsidies. The question
is, how can challengers be publicly financed as well, so no one
has to depend upon wealthy people to run an election campaign?
There are at least 3 ways that public financing of elections
could occur. We’ll describe in detail them next week.
In the meantime, Ellen Miller, director of the Center for
Responsive Politics, says this about campaign finance reform: “It
is the reform that makes all other reforms possible.” If you
seek pollution control or prevention, you first need to pay
attention to the way elections are financed. There’s a powerful
reason why your elected officials don’t listen to you. That
reason is money. We have to get money out of politics.
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] See REHW #407.
Descriptor terms: elections; law making; legislative process;
election finance; human health; sst; victories; pollution
prevention; libertarians; libertarianism; corporations; public
financing of elections;