As the public continues to focus on health care reform, there is one piece of reform Congress could pass that would have a much larger impact on the political process and society at large. The health care debate is a good start. Everyone should know by now about the huge political contrubutions from the health insurance industry. That is only the tip of the iceberg. Just like health care reform, campaign finance reform is a slow and incremental process. It began in the 1970s when PACs replaced individual donors. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but things are not better.
The same website for the article above has links to figure out how much our representatives are getting. It's really depressing to see our democracy being bought and sold like this. This isn't a Democratic or Republican issue. As much as we might want to say the conservative bastards are bought and sold by corporations, the same could be said of many Democrats. It's not even about liberal or conservative anymore. It's about corporate vs. non-corporate. In fact, it's often corporations fighting it out amongst themselves. Do we want energy reform? Well, we better ask big oil what they think about it? Even cash for clunkers helped the car industry while hurting others like the oil companies (after all, there are now nearly a million vehicles getting better gas mileage).
This debate goes back to free speech and whether financial contributions can be considered free speech. It also goes back to a debate over the nature of corporations themselves. It seems we went down a dangerous road when we decided that corporations should have the same rights as human beings. Corporations have the rights to freedom of speech going all the way down to contributing to campaigns. Consumers unwittingly pay for exhorbinant CEO salaries, but they also pay for a company's politics.
In an effort to keep out people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, we instead allowed entities like Microsoft, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Exxon to do their bidding. Campaign finance reform is about real democracy. It's about allowing ideas to carry the weight of the day. It's about giving individuals a voice again in lieu of corporations. It's also about politicians doing what's best for the American people and not about what is best for their donors. It's not just about health care. It's about everything.
The solution is fairly simple. We should have spending limits on campaigns. Taxpayers provide a good amount for people to spend on campaigns. Instead of flooding the market with television commercials (which usually distort the truth anyway) we should sponsor more public debates between all of the candidates. Plus, if a local representative can have a townhall meeting every August then why can't they have two or three debates locally throughout the campaign. Newspapers could donate an entire section of the paper to allowing each candidate to say their piece on the issues. Heck, maybe voters would come out more informed.
Without campaign finance reform we're just pissing in the wind. Health care reform will be a mirage as the insurance companies will somehow find a way to profit more in a system where they shouldn't even exist. Republicans and Democrats alike will blame the other side for being bought and sold by corporate interests. Alas, a government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation will continue into eternity.
Gee, I don't know... What do you do when a country has been over-thrown by corrupt bastards who are only interested in themselves?
We have all been spectators while the country has been going through an economic coup... G.W. Bush put the coup de grace on everything by allowing corporations to be treated the same as citizens.
I like this and think it's a good start. Let's keep going, shall we?
1. Take all the lobbyists out of DC and put them on an island somewhere with no communication link to DC or politicians ever again.
2. One bill, one issue when it comes to legislation and voting, period. No rep is allowed to abstain or just not vote. We always have a record of where they stand.
3. No more limiting two-party system.
4. The one with the most votes wins Pres; the one with the second-most votes wins VP.
Okay, now someone else choose 4. We'll eat the elephant one bite at a time.
What we need, now, is CANADIAN-STYLE campaign finance. 100% publicly financed, with strict spending caps. Period and end of story. Anyone who thinks money should count the same as speech needs their marbles checked, and that includes the ACLU.
Great blog, Scott! I wish I knew what we could do about this, because obviously SOMETHING needs to be done. My husband believes term limits would help. But as I pointed out to him, if we had had term limits, we wouldn't have had a Ted Kennedy who worked his entire adult life to serve the American people.
Corporations and their shareholders need to realize that their greed is going to bring this country to its knees. Not that they will care.
Scott, very nice piece.
A limit on what can be spent in a campaign should be low enough to match what could be raised by a popular third-party candidate.
The worry I have with this is that the reform would be circumvented by Fox News, AM Radio - all venues that would campaign 24 hours a day and with which the left simply can not compete.
Great post! Next week, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission will come before the Supremes. Their decision could end any semblance of democracy as we know it. The courts decision could allow unlimited corporate donations to candidates, and as we know, they're not above buying the government that they want.