=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #427
—February 3, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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BIG-PICTURE ORGANIZING–PART 7: GETTING MONEY OUT OF POLITICS
As we saw last week, during the past 20 years elections have
turned into money-raising contests. About 90% of the time
(literally), elections are won by the person who raises the most
money. And the money raised is huge: the average U.S. Senate
race requires expenditure of $3.9 million, and some candidates
have spent upwards of $25 million on a single contest. As a
result, our elections are now largely decided by the WEALTH
PRIMARY –a money-raising contest that precedes the real primary.
Behind the scenes, the WEALTH PRIMARY determines who the
candidates will be. [1]
The major sources of campaign money are wealthy individuals and
corporations. Therefore, people who hold ideas unpopular with
wealthy individuals and corporations, are generally prohibited
from running for office, much less winning. Furthermore, after
the election, the winners must curry favor with wealthy
individuals and corporations because they need money for
re-election. For example, the average U.S. Senator must raise
$12,500 each week for 312 weeks (6 years) to acquire the $3.9
million needed to win re-election. Where do you get $12,500 in
donations each week? Probably not from average Americans.
As a practical matter, this means that elected officials rub
elbows with the well-to-do on a regular basis, and change their
ideas, as needed, to release the necessary flow of cash. Or,
alternatively, elected officials ARE the well-to-do. For
example, 26% of U.S. Senators are millionaires, whereas only
one-tenth of one percent of the general public are millionaires.
Conversely, no candidates for U.S. Senate in recent memory have
been poor–and none have descended into poverty after taking
office. Yet 15.3% of the general public is poor. As a result,
the spectrum of views of the American public is not fairly
represented by today’s elected officials.
Nationwide, elections today are comparable to elections in some
southern states prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For
example, prior to 1964, some states discouraged African-Americans
from running for office by requiring payment of a high “filing
fee.” To run for office in Texas, for example, you had to pay a
“filing fee” ranging from $1000 to $6300. In 1972, the Supreme
Court of the United States, in a case known as BULLOCK V. CARTER,
declared that the Texas filing fees violated the equal protection
clause of the U.S. constitution. The Court said high filing fees
set up “barriers to candidate access to the primary ballot,
thereby tending to limit the field of candidates from which
voters might choose.” The Court said, “the very size of the fees
imposed under the Texas system” gave the electoral system “a
patently exclusionary character.” Many “potential office seekers
lacking both personal wealth and affluent backers are in every
practical sense precluded from seeking the nomination of their
chosen party, no matter how qualified they might be, and no
matter how enthusiastic their popular support,” the Court said.
As a result, the Court said, the Texas system unfairly (and
illegally) gave “the affluent the power to place on the ballot
their own names or the names of the persons they favor.” Two
years later in another case (LUBIN V. PANISH) the Court
reaffirmed these views.
As we also saw last week, incumbents (those already in office)
have a tremendous advantage over challengers because public money
subsidizes the election campaigns of incumbents but not of
challengers. Furthermore, holders of private wealth seek to
influence incumbents by contributing to their re-election
campaigns. As a result, in the U.S. House of Representatives in
1992, for example, the average incumbent had $692,000 to spend
campaigning, while the average challenger had only $155,000.
Under these circumstances, incumbents can easily overwhelm
challengers –and do, almost 90% of the time.
Incumbents attract private money from two main sources: political
action committees (PACs) and wealthy individuals. Small
contributions (below $200.00 each) account for less that 20% of
all campaign giving. [2]
Direct contributions by corporations to candidates for federal
office have been illegal since the Tillman Act of 1907; to
side-step this prohibition, many corporations, trade
associations, professional groups, and other businesses sponsor
political action committees that collect funds from their
employees or members and funnel them to candidates. In 1992,
PACs contributed $188 million, or 29% of the $659 million total
spent in all federal elections. Business PACs outspent labor
PACs by 3 to 1. Furthermore, PACs give overwhelmingly to
incumbents and not to challengers. In 1992 the average House of
Representatives incumbent received $222,000 from PACs –MORE THAN
THE CHALLENGER HAD AVAILABLE TO SPEND ON HIS OR HER ENTIRE
CAMPAIGN.
Contrary to what many people believe, wealthy individuals
contribute even more than PACs –$233 million, or 35% of the
total in 1992. The wealthiest 2% of Americans contributed 77% of
this $233 million.
Of the total $659 million spent on federal elections in 1992,
about 80% ($527 million) came from business interests, according
to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics in
Washington, D.C. It naturally follows that, in the give-and-take
of passing new laws, business interests are generally favored
over the interests of average Americans because, from a
politician’s perspective, businesses are paying the piper, so
they get to call the tune.
As a result, the wages of working people have steadily diminished
while corporate profits are setting records and executive
salaries have gone through the roof; environmental laws are being
weakened or ignored and environmentally-related illnesses are
being permitted to increase; the burden of taxes has been
gradually but relentlessly shifted from the wealthy and
corporations onto middle-class Americans and the working poor;
so-called “free trade” laws are encouraging corporations to move
to the developing world where they can thumb their noses at the
normal constraints of civilized behavior; job security,
retirement benefits, and health insurance are becoming a thing of
the past for millions of Americans; home ownership is beyond the
reach of more and more working people; and all the while massive
quantities of taxpayers’ money are being wasted bailing out the
failed experiments of Wall Street speculators and crooks.
The normal checks on the system –formerly available via the
electoral process –are no longer accessible to average Americans
in large part because of the corrupting influence of money in
politics, especially the money of corporations and the corporate
elite.
In response to the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Congress passed the
Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) to limit contributions to
candidates for federal office. FECA was immediately challenged
as an infringement on first amendment rights; the plaintiffs
argued that “limiting the use of money for political purposes
constitute[d] a restriction on communication violative of the
First Amendment, since virtually all meaningful political
communications in the modern setting involve the expenditure of
money.”
In BUCKLEY V. VALEO, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the FECA
law, thus saying in effect that pumping private money into
elections is a form of free speech. This decision has allowed
the wealthy to positively shout in elections, drowning out the
voices of the majority of Americans –a situation clearly not
consistent with our one-person-one-vote democracy.
Even if BUCKLEY V. VALEO were never overturned, we could get
money out of politics with some straightforward reforms:
Remedy 1: A “Floor” of Public Financing: The first remedy would
have the federal government provide minimal public financing,
coupled with media vouchers, to all eligible congressional
candidates to enable them to conduct viable campaigns.
Eligibility would be determined according to some reasonable
threshold of public support, demonstrated perhaps by signatures
on petitions. The level of financing could be set either in
relation to each congressperson’s public subsidy, which is
approximately $200,000, or the amount of money spent by the
winner in the last election. Under this plan, publicly financed
challengers could still be outspent by candidates raising private
funds; that is, public money would guarantee a “floor” of public
money and resources for non-affluent candidates, but the sky
would still be the limit in terms of private money raised and
spent.
Remedy 2: A voluntary system of total public financing: To
address the concerns that a floor of public financing will not
secure the equal protection rights of qualified non-affluent
candidates competing with privately-financed candidates, we could
go a step further. Under this plan, the government would not
only establish a floor of public financing but would also provide
eligible candidates with additional grants to match expenditures
by privately-financed candidates that exceed the established
floor. This remedy, in effect, would establish a system of total
public financing of elections, thus getting rid of the financial
inequality of the old system.
This remedy would be voluntary. Candidates who chose to opt out
of the public system and compete instead in the wealth primary
could do so. No caps would be placed on their campaign spending.
Yet, those opting in, with the condition that they agree not to
raise or spend any private money in the primary and general
elections, could rely on the escalator of public financing for
the protection of their rights to participate in the electoral
process on an equal and meaningful basis.
Remedy 3: A system of total public financing with mandatory
spending limits: The third remedy would be total public financing
with mandatory spending limits, thereby limiting the need for the
government to provide additional grants to match the expenditures
of privately-financed candidates. This third remedy would
require a reversal of the BUCKLEY V. VALEO ruling.
Our elections –the heart of our system of self-governance –have
been systematically corrupted by private wealth. As a result,
America finds itself in deepening trouble. Public financing of
elections is a solution that seems simple, fair and affordable.
Campaign finance reform is the key reform that makes other
reforms possible. It is time to get private money out of our
elections.
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] The role of wealth in elections has been documented in detail
in Jamin B. Raskin and John Bonifaz, THE WEALTH PRIMARY
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Responsive Politics, 1994).
Available for $10.00 from Center for Responsive Politics, 1320
19th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036); telephone (202)
857-0044. Highly recommended.
Descriptor terms: campaign finance reform; congress; elections;
corruption; wealth; poverty; legislation; laws; legislative
process; corporations; public financing of elections;