involved in ccfr now .
But we citizens need to recognize that the problem with America’s democracy is not just some recent Supreme Court decisions. The problem with America’s democracy is America’s democracy. The problem is the Skinner box that candidates for Congress must live within just to raise the money they need to run their campaigns. That Skinner box is the corruption. And whatever the virtues in declaring that corporations are not persons, that declaration will not liberate Congress from the box.
“But what about the SuperPACs? Even if we had ‘citizen-funded elections,’ won’t SuperPACs continue to dominate the system? And won’t the 1% simply turn to them to find a way to exert their influence?” There’s no doubt that Citizens United unleashed a series of decisions by courts and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that have created a new, and even more virulent instance of precisely the corruption I’ve described. Before Citizens United, Members were dependent upon the Funders to fund their campaigns. After Citizens United, members of Congress are dependent upon the Funders to fund their SuperPACs too. Not technically “their” SuperPACs, of course, because the whole idea of SuperPACs is that they are “independent” of the candidates (and if you believe that, then ...). But whether they have “their SuperPAC” or not, candidates for Congress must now inspire the 1% to contribute to their campaign, and to these independent groups too.
The incentives here are truly invidious. As former Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) once described it to a television reporter, every incumbent
in D.C. is now terrified that 30 days before an election, some SuperPAC will drop $ 1 million in ads against him or her. That fear inspires a logical response: Incumbents seek to secure a kind of SuperPAC insurance — a guarantee that if they are attacked, an equal but opposite response will be launched. But because the incumbents can’t simply turn to their own largest contributors (by definition, these contributors have maxed out), the incumbents must secure that insurance by finding a SuperPAC on their side, which has a strong enough reason to intervene to support that incumbent. And all this security has to be in place long before there is an attack. So the incumbent needs to cement the loyalty of this potentially friendly SuperPAC, in just the way SuperPACs like — by voting according to the views supported by the Funders of the SuperPAC.
This is the economics of a protection racket. Long before even a single dollar is spent, the very threat that dollars will be spent has changed the behavior of the government in power. And in this obvious dynamic, the dependence of Congress upon the Funders has been radically increased.
So of course I agree that Citizens United is a real problem. And it may well be that we need to amend the Constitution to deal with that real problem. But (1) even if we do, that doesn’t change the strategy that we should be following right now. And (2) in any case, I’m not yet convinced that we will in fact have to amend the Constitution to deal with Citizens United. (1) The need to amend the Constitution eventually doesn’t change the strategy now, because the only way we will ever have the political support in Congress to defend an election system of integrity is if we have a Congress chosen through an election system of integrity. We need, in other words, to change the way Congress’s elections are funded, if we’re to have any chance of achieving the supermajority support that we’d need to change the way the Constitution has been interpreted. The first step to changing the Constitution is to change Congress. But more important, (2) it’s not even clear that we need to change the Constitution to deal with Citizens United.
First, citizen funding may be enough. As the nonprofit Dēmos puts it, If candidates for federal office were mostly raising money in small contributions from average citizens, and if outside spending groups were organizing these average citizens to give them a louder voice in the political process, the sheer volume of money raised and spent might not present such a troubling problem. Even with SuperPACs, this tactic may give members of Congress enough independence to do the right (according to their constituents’ view) thing. And that would mean we could ignore this ignoble decision, and get on with the project of doing government well.
Lessig, Lawrence (2013-04-03). Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (TED Books) (Kindle Locations 515-516). TED Conferences. Kindle Edition.
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