What’s the best metaphor for our nauseatingly corrupt political system? Here are three I just made up, but if there are any good suggestions in the comments I’m happy to add more:
• It’s an open sewer filled with an extremely unpleasant slurry that causes cholera
• It’s a whirligig much like this one except the riders all have violent food poisoning and are spraying vomit over everyone in a 300-yard radius
• It’s a sebaceous cyst the size of a baby’s head (DO NOT CLICK)
The good news is that we may not be doomed to spend the rest of our lives thinking of disgusting things to which to compare the American political process. This week for the first time, 12 major U.S. public interest organizations jointly released a campaign finance reform agenda, which they are asking every presidential candidate to endorse.
The unprecedented coordination by the groups — including People for the American Way, Public Citizen, Democracy 21, Mayday and the Brennan Center for Justice — grew out of and builds upon a set of “Unity Principles” endorsed by 152 organizations including the AFL-CIO, MoveOn, Greenpeace and the NAACP.
And while simply creating a list of common demands is the baby step part of politics, there’s a reason parents get excited when their children first stand up and walk.
The document, called “Fighting Big Money, Empowering People: An 21st Century Democracy Agenda,” asks candidates to commit to five principles: (1) everyone participates; (2) everyone’s voice is heard; (3) everyone knows who is trying to influence our views and our representatives; (4) everyone plays by fair, common-sense rules; and (5) everyone is held accountable, with enforceable penalties to deter bad behavior.
The agenda then asks presidential candidates to “advocate for a specific and comprehensive plan” based on those principles, including:
• Actions solely within the president’s power
The next president will probably appoint several Supreme Court Justices and, the groups say, should take the opportunity to “transform the current [Supreme] Court’s misguided approach to money in politics” beginning with Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 and running through Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC.
The president should issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclosure political spending (something Obama could do if he wanted but hasn’t), and push regulatory agencies like the FEC, FCC, IRS and SEC to promulgate pro-transparency rules.
• Actions that require both Congress and the president
The agenda calls for matching funds and tax credits for small donors to campaigns, such as those provided by a current bill written by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md.
Congress should pass and the president should sign a restoration of the Voting Rights Act.
• Actions that require Congress and the states
The agenda notes that the most permanent solution for dealing with the Supreme Court’s “fundamentally flawed decisions” on money in politics would be passage of the Democracy For All constitutional amendment.
The reform organizations have written to all the major declared presidential candidates to ask to meet to discuss their agenda — and, if they endorse it, say exactly what they would do about it. “That’s what we missed in 2008 and 2012 with Obama,” says David Donnelly, president of Every Voice, another signatory to the agenda. “He had all the right positions, none of the right actions. They need to hold up their plan of action. Every single candidate should have an answer to, ‘what are you going to do to fix it?'”
Groups like New Hampshire Rebellion, Iowa Pays the Price, and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement will be chasing candidates around the two earliest primary states to try to force them to respond to the agenda on the record. Dan Weeks, executive director of New Hampshire Rebellion, says that “I knew that it would be a slog and it is a slog,” but even Republican candidates “have so far exceeded my expectations” thanks to “the level of public outrage.”
Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have previously endorsed much though not all of the agenda, but haven’t done much to explain how they’re going to accomplish their stated goals. Hillary Clinton so far has given vague lip service to doing something about money in politics, with promises to provide more specifics eventually.
Disclosure: Common Cause, Issue One, Public Citizen and Demos, signatories to the campaign finance reform agenda, receive financial support from the Democracy Fund, which is funded by Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Pierre Omidyar is founder of The Intercept’s parent company, First Look Media.
Correction: The number of signatories to the “Unity Principles” on in the influence of money in politics has been updated from 131 to 152.
The problem is that people have too much freedom. Freedom to make money and then freedom to use it as they see fit. As long as this is true, some people will have undue influence on the political process. Tinkering with political funding regulations does not address this root problem.
So why, despite the best efforts of government, do people still have a measure of freedom? The answer may be unwelcome, but it is inescapable: the US Constitution is to blame. The First Amendment allows all sorts of lobby groups to advocate their own special interests. The Second Amendment gives people an incentive to form a powerful lobby. And it only gets worse from there.
Until you find a way to annul the Constitution, I’m afraid your program of reforms will just go around in circles. As you devise a new barrier, the lobbyists will be devising new ways to go over, under or around it.
Please, explain how would annuling the constituion would play out?
You, clearly, have not been paying attention.
It ought to be pretty simple, just prohibit any funds that are not issued to the citizens from being used to have anything to do with the election. We need to get rid of the ‘rich man wins’ syndrome and get back to one person, one vote, and legal campaigns! Abolish the Electoral College’ also! Maybe we need a law that limits how much wealth you can have and hold public office. Also, get rid of professional politicians! It creates a form of government quite close to a virtual Monarchy!
don’t have to chase green party’s jill stein around. she’s already there:
Abolish corporate personhood. Protect voters’ rights by establishing a constitutional right to vote. Enact electoral reforms that break the big money stranglehold and create truly representative democracy: public campaign financing, ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and open debates.
I agree.
Defund Hillary (and Jeb).
Overturn roe, gay marriage, and a few other things while you’re at it
Say, what’s the benefit of turning fish eggs upside down – and who’s this “gay marriage” person?
You pro lifer’s just won’t quit, will you? You want no abortion choice for mothers and no welfare or support for starving children and mom’s? Your unconcern for others is unacceptable. You are not a human. You have failed the ‘Turing test’ ! Your bizarre programming is outing you!
Let me take a wild guess as to what you’re alluding to in your oh-so-clever metaphors… Why project your criticisms of campaign finance in such a vile manner on a totally different issue – one which you mischaracterize in such a misogynistic way, such that your words sound like they came right out of the locker room of frat boys? Your opening made the rest of your fine points, which I would otherwise agree with, totally unpalatable. I hope you enjoyed weaving your clever metaphors. Pat on your back for being so clever.
Jon, wouldn’t less government spending and power also help accomplish the same goals? The organizations listed here don’t mind more government, just as long as it’s their kind of government. It’s why I don’t believe in government and subscribe to the Anarcho-Capitalist School of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell.
Well, anarcho-capitalism is something that’s never existed anywhere, and in my opinion it could never could exist for longer than about a week. It’s sort of like communism, in that it’s a totally logical system that would work great with some other species than humans.
With all due respect, one could just as easily say that an incorrupt political system has “never existed anywhere.” Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend this as an argument as it’s not really a sound, logical argument anyway. And asserting that “in my opinion it could never exist for longer than about a week” certainly isn’t a compelling argument either.
Moreover, communism is by no means a logical system. For starters, it lacks a naturally evolved price system, which is necessary for rational allocation of scarce resources. Communism actually defies economic logic.
Anarcho-capitalism simply means respect for individual rights, private property and a rejection of coercion and/or aggression as a basis for a peaceful, voluntary society. It’s pretty much the same thing we teach our children as they’re growing up, isn’t it?
Of course, a comments section is rarely the place for comprehensive arguments to be put forth, but I do hope my comments above at least provide some food for thought, perhaps even provoking some to do a bit of their own research.
Cheers!
What about that option : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
That’s why know one will ever take you seriously. Rothbard and Rockwell are/were living in a little utopian fantasy world of their own creation where history and present reality don’t exist. And where they will never have the slightest idea of how to pragmatically address the problems generated by 310 + million people attempting to live together as a “functioning society” rather than some combo Lord of the Flies/Road Warrior dystopian capitalist rule of the strong nightmare.
Stupid fat fingers–not “know one” but “no one”.
The point of Rothbard and Rockwell is the beginning of “bargaining” or thought should be a voluntary society so that what happens in practical effect is something much less open to cronyism, which a larger state helps effectuate. I do appreciate you both responding, though, and I think our goals are the same.
You might find The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin, interesting. Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach isn’t bad either.
What is the conservative consortium equivalent of the consortium described above? I suggest that a REAL consortium would have many conservative groups within its alliance. (Believe it or not, conservatives are also frustrated with pay-to-play.)
I don’t think there’s any consortium now, and I doubt there ever will be. But there are few groups around, like this one run by John Pudner:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/08/mini-groundswell-right-promising-campaign-finance-reform/
My reaction also. The fact that only progressive groups were named suggests that their proposals would simply be another partisan football, rather than leading to a meaningful policy change. How is that not immediately obvious to even the most hopeful reformer?
Actually, going back on the gold standard would be a great start. The government would not run huge deficits which flow right back to those who use these Federal Reserve fiat dollars to buy ever more influence to run bigger deficits …
Alternatively, BTC to decrease governments’ ability to wage war.
Actually, gold is an extracted commodity — more plunder. A good start would be public campaign financing. Long term, ban corporations and grow economic democracy. If there’s no one to buy democracy, democracy can’t be bought.