If you don’t think it’s fair that billionaires like Donald Trump can run their own self-funded campaigns for president, don’t blame the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Blame the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo instead.
Citizens United lets billionaires give unlimited money to Super PACs trying to elect other people, but billionaires have been able to give as much money as they wanted to their own campaigns since Buckley.
Buckley v. Valeo struck down many provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which was first passed in 1971 and then amended in 1974 after Watergate revealed Richard Nixon’s straightforward corruption. (The quid and the quo were not remotely subtle: The bill of particulars supporting Nixon’s articles of impeachment cited his campaign taking $200,000 from the chairman of McDonald’s, in return for which McDonald’s was allowed to raise the price of a quarter pounder cheeseburger.)
Among the ’70s-era reforms was a $50,000 per calendar year limit on how much of their own money presidential candidates could spend on their campaigns. But since Buckley it’s perfectly fine for candidates to spend as much of their own money as they want. Trump is by no means the first to take advantage of this: Ross Perot spent about $60 million of his own money in his 1992 run for president.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court’s Buckley decision made points that Trump paraphrases today, like this: “The use of personal funds reduces the candidate’s dependence on outside contributions and thereby counteracts the coercive pressures and attendant risks of abuse” of contributions from others.
Trump’s latest filings with the Federal Election Commission show that through this June he’s loaned his campaign $1,804,747.
The Buckley ruling also claimed that rich candidates could be at a disadvantage if they couldn’t spend their own money, because “a candidate’s personal wealth may impede his efforts to persuade others that he needs their financial contributions.” This appears to be the case with Trump, who — despite doing far better in polls than any other Republican candidate — has only received $92,249 in contributions from others through June 30.
While most of the sound and fury about campaign finance laws has focused on Citizens United, reformers recognize the importance of Buckley as well. Twelve major U.S. public interest organizations have released a common campaign finance agenda demanding that the next president appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn not just Citizens United but also Buckley, and Hillary Clinton recently said, “We have to reverse the effects, not just of Citizens United, but of the Buckley case.”
Correction: August 10, 2015
A previous version of this article incorrectly said that one of Nixon’s articles of impeachment cited bribery involving the price of McDonald’s quarter pounder cheeseburgers; in fact, the bribery was cited as part of the bill of particulars supporting all of the articles of impeachment.
Buckley was indeed a bad decision, and the source of much of the problem with modern campaign finance law, but not for the reason cited in this article. Its problem was that it permitted any part of McCain-Feingold to stand. That decision sought to reconcile the law’s blatant unconstitutionality with the majority’s desire to limit the perception of election corruption. So naturally it spawned endless efforts to circumvent the law while simultaneously running roughshod over the 1st Amendment.
People (whether acting individually or in groups) should be able to spend their own money on elections as they choose. That means supporting or opposing candidates (themselves or others) or issues to whatever extent they deem appropriate, without limit. The only control which the government can properly (constitutionally) assert is to require prompt disclosure of all contributions (source and amount). That way if a politician appears to be being “bought” it will be transparent to the entire electorate, which can then decide whether or not they have a problem with it.
The primary purpose of the 1st Amendment is to protect political speech. The Framers would have been more than surprised to see it applied to protect smutty books and pornographic “art” but not free ranging political speech. And make no mistake, contributing money to a politician or issue is very much “speech”; one cannot get one’s message out without spending money, and artificially limiting the source of that money is blatant censorship.
I’ve been hearing promises of campaign finance reform for a very long time, and it never amounts to anything. There is always a loophole. This is for two reasons: the more sinister being that the rich, who run Congress, are scarcely going to put themselves on a leash, and the less sinister being that Americans have this funny notion that they ought to be able to get up on a stage or write a paper or put out a blog that says who they want in office without having to register with the government.
The notion that the First Amendment should be repealed is (a) a really, really creepy bad idea, and (b) not going to fricking happen. For this reason, it seems wise to reconsider the best methods of campaign finance reform.
One is to go with this guy: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/08/mini-groundswell-right-promising-campaign-finance-reform/#comment-138896 Set up some kind of free per capita money supply that all voters can use to back candidates they like.
Another is to go after the media that hold monopoly statuses with the government. Licensed TV and radio stations, cable companies with monopoly franchises. Make them pay just a little of their time back in exchange for the ideologically indefensible advantages they hold over ordinary citizens. Pay it back in free ads for all candidates. Pay it back in free time for citizens’ groups with a certain membership size that register. Let every candidate be heard for free, no money required.
But perhaps the most powerful curb is the one we have taken for granted, but have allowed to be pushed into the background. The League of Women Voters is the sort of group I mean, with the pull to bring candidates on the stage to face each other in debate, so that everyone has a say and the voters see them all regardless of the money. This is a sort of free money for all that was made out of nothing, out of thin air, by the dedication of the members of that organization. And they didn’t just create money, but also a sense of integrity – it’s not the sort of pro wrestling match that Fox News carried out, complete with arbitrary kingmaking and horse trading over who gets in and moderators more opinionated than some of the candidates.
In every regard, we need to think of building politics from the bottom up, one brick at a time, one human connection after another. No FCC regulator on a white horse is going to ride out of heaven and clear away all the corruption. There’s just us.
In fact, the Citizens United decision specifically reinstated Buckley v. Valeo. Any overturn of Citizens by some future court needs to toss Buckley in the trash as well.
What’s wrong with pouring money into a campain? Capitalism and its by products fuel everyone on this board and the writer. Money is behind everything, we allow it, don’t want it to really change, and many like Trump, all over the world, worship it and are addicted to it. Money has shaped The United States and earth and greed have ruled since day one of . Nothing will ever be done about it. And it will continue to morph and mutate till the end of time.
The American political system is and has always been corrupt.
It is true that money has more say in its democracy than the voters.
Their is little choice between the Parties that control the elections.
Red or Blue, or any colour the candidates are not chosen by the people but by the Parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy
snip
Kant on anarchy
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant treated anarchy in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View as consisting of “Law and Freedom without Force”. Thus, for Kant, anarchy falls short of being a true civil state because the law is only an “empty recommendation” if force is not included to make this law efficacious. For there to be such a state, force must be included while law and freedom are maintained, a state which Kant calls republic.[3][4]
As summary Kant named four kinds of government:
Law and freedom without force (anarchy).
Law and force without freedom (despotism).
Force without freedom and law (barbarism).
Force with freedom and law (republic).
snip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_in_the_United_States
snip
Anarchy in the United States is a phenomenon that existed mostly in colonial times. Historical records of it are superficial, since historians tend to display scant interest in stateless societies.[1] Nonetheless, Murray Rothbard and other historians have identified instances of it. Among them, the coastal region of North Carolina north of the Albemarle Sound in what was then Virginia was a congregating point for those who wished to escape the control of England or the Anglican Church or even wealthier residents of Virginia until 1663. Other major regions of anarchy were located in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and the American West.
snip
Look most of the campaign finance regulations in Buckley v. Valeo were upheld. If memory serves it was only the independent expenditures by individuals (on themselves) and associations that was ruled unConstitutional.
In my humble opinion self-funded campaign expenditures by rich individuals aren’t the threat to democracy or electoral integrity that they are being painted out to be. There is simply no quid pro quo threat when an individual self funds, and to the degree there is, simply tighten up the law regarding Presidents having to place all their assets in a blind trusts if/when elected.
In fact the law should be not only if you want to self fund and you win, then every conceivable asset of you or your spouse must be liquidated at present market value and then the net placed into a blind trust run by independent federal agency under the same fiduciary obligations as any other trustee, if and when you win.
Think about it like this–any billionaire individual human being is a known quantity for all intents and purposes. He/she can’t win an office like POTUS without having a viable platform that speaks to the interests of a majority of the American people rather than himself or his fellow billionaires. No matter how much he/she spends to get his/her “message” out, that message must be persuasive and resonate and be distinct from his/her own personal interests or they will never be elected. If he doesn’t come through, he/she is easily removed from office in the next election.
The real problem is “dark” money injected by for-profit entity amalgamations of capital (corporation and entire for-profit industry associations) into the democratic system. Because they are both not living breathing human beings with “political” interests and purely legal fictions whose only interest is “profit maximization”. They are unlike democratic “unions” of workers who contribute their individual wages to engage in politics collectively. If it was the case that all the employees and workers of a for-profit entity wanted to contribute to their individual employers political speech I’d have much less of a problem with it, because then it would be consistent with the First Amendments right to freely associate as living breathing human beings to advance their individual “human” interests. Whatever they perceive them to be. Everybody knows what a union memberships’ interest are–to better the wage and working condition of its employees.
But that’s not the danger to the system in the same way amalgamations of capital with no human qualities and only an automaton like “profit maximization” economic interest that seeks to infiltrate the public debate and discourse on the broad array of human “political” concerns. And that’s because they have zero moral compass or interest in anything but profit maximization. They will lie, cheat, steal, misinform and engage in any activity to advance their economic self-interest through the purchasing of influence in the “democratic” electoral and legislative process. And they don’t particularly care if they get caught so long as it doesn’t result in criminal prosecution for the living breathing board of directors, principals or officers and managers of the entity. They’ll simply and quite immorally without repercussions to the principals, BOD or officers, simply price their corruption of the process it into the “cost of doing business.” That’s the threat. Individual human beings won’t and don’t conduct themselves “politically” in that manner because there are real world social, moral and economic consequences when and if they get caught. And that’s why for-profit legal fictions should NOT be considered to have “free speech” or “associational rights” for the purposes of “political” speech.
In the way unions can’t force a portion of dues from their paying members to go to the “unions'” political speech that is democratically agreed upon collectively by its individual members, it would be fine by me if for-profit entities had the right to “political speech” but only to the extent of voluntary contributions from its employees (management, directors, officers and employees collectively) who are of like mind. But they absolutely shouldn’t be allowed to divert a portion of the entity’s “profits” to engage in “political speech”. That’s the problem. Because it isn’t the money of the combined managers, directors and officers that is the problem, it’s the use of an amalgamation of capitals profits that is incomprehensibly large and destructive.
And I honestly don’t have any problem with unlimited giving by individual human beings because anything less is inconsistent with the First Amendment (which is not to say I agree that “money=speech”, but for other reasons). That’s basically what Buckley v. Valeo gets right, it just gets it wrong with regard to “associations”.
And the only other problem is that if an individual wants to engage in political speech, and yes that can be fraught with all sorts of negative consequences when you openly advocate a policy you believe in, it should be done 100% transparently. Any individual who wants to weigh in on political issues of the day, via monetary contributions, or somehow paying to have their speech catapulted into the public debate then they should at least be forced to walk the talk and bear the consequences of that speech. They should have his/her identity fully and transparently associated with their opinions via full real time disclosure. If you want to have individual human political opinion “anonymously”, and not face the social or economic consequences of the unpopular ones, then write op-eds or blog comments, for free, under a pseudonym and force that idea to be combatted on the merits. But if you spend money to catapult your speech or support a candidate for public office how much, or pay someone to blog or write op-eds, then the money to whom and by whom should be available from the second that money changes hands from the individual to the person attempting to catapult the speech into the public debate.
Those three things would fix most of the problems.
But so long as amalgamations of capital can create confusion about what policies are associated with what entities, and which candidates are being funded by which entities, there will be a problem. Moreover, absent a total ban or very strict limits on how much non-human purely profit maximizing legal fictions can contribute we’re going to have a problem because that conflates the broad spectrum of “human political concerns” with purely profit maximizing economic concerns masquerading as human political concerns.
Your idea of letting the people choose is an interesting one. It might work, but the choices offered to the people would have to be carefully vetted. Otherwise, a candidate might offer real change, rather than merely hoping for change. No responsible candidate would do this of course, but in the heat battle, politicians trying to get elected might become reckless.
So the best way to preserve the system will be to give more power to the party establishment. They could select a short list of two or three acceptable candidates, rather than the current undignified parade of candidates. Those candidates would be given a limited amount of public money, told how to spend it and who the winner should be. That way, each party could be certain of putting forward its best candidate. But how could you design this system to lock out other potential parties? The public funding could be restricted to parties which had received at least 15% of the national popular vote in the previous election. That would eliminate the Green Party, the Libertarian party and the other fringe parties – who could no longer solicit private donors, fund themselves or receive public funds. Those parties don’t pose any real threat of course, but they sometimes promote ideas which are disruptive.
Such a system would cost less, eliminate the clown cars of candidates and counter the electorate’s occasional urge to choose a maverick. Eliminating money from the campaign would also be more democratic. So I can understand why Jon Schwarz keeps plugging it.
The only thing that Buckley threatens is the Democrat/Republican duopoly, only reason why Clinton’s against it.
The fact that Ross Perot and Donald trump would pour
what is (supposed to be) their money
into trying to buy the presidency
is an indication of how corrupting money can be.
The two point of this article which I find especially interesting are
that Donald Trump is doing better in the polls than any other republican
and
that other (really stupid) people have given him $92, 249.00.
TWO more proofs of how corrupting money can be.
Don’t get me wrong,
it is very clear to me that
the democrats and the rest of the republicans
are all a bunch of Trump-wanna-be’s.
Not one of them has put the focus on equal justice or the truth.
Economics is their god.
Blame?? So now it is a sin if you actually put your money where your mouth is?????
So many opinions make no sense here on the intercept.
I would be for only allowing self funded campaigns before I would be banning self funded campaigns.
You libtards never saw a government teet you didn’t like!
In any event the Fox debate the other night showed there is only 1 party anyway………”The ruling oligarchy”
Fox attempted nothing less than a hit job on Trump.
I get the gist of it, but the article needs to be dumbed down a bit. We aren’t all clever investigative journalists or lawyers.
I’m surprised that “MOVE to AMEND” was not mentioned.
This is a movement
“to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.”
See: http://movetoamend.org/
“Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap from Move to Amend National walks through how to get involved with Move to Amend for our monthly Take Action Webinar. She shares all our programs and you can engage with the campaign from acting as an individual, to helping start a new Move to Amend group in your area.”
http://movetoamend.org/introduction-move-amend-video
After Ross Perot, the major parties made it more difficult for a third party candidate to get on the ballot. So I’m not too worried about the prospects of the two major parties. Should they be empowered to dole out public money to themselves to prevent an outsider from getting into the race ? I can understand how those with delicate sensibilities would prefer to see Trump locked out of the political process. But for me, he adds entertainment value and poses little real danger, as he will never be elected to public office. The repeated proposals by The Intercept to make politics safer for the two major parties by giving them control over funding, will ultimately succeed, but I don’t see the need for any rush. Money will always control politics, but it may shift from the front end to the back end, i.e. politicians who perform well will be showered with cash when they retire from office. Since the candidates will be carefully vetted by the party establishment, most of them will indeed perform well. And the vulgar tendency of the populace to indulge eccentric and unpredictable candidates will be kept under control.
“Nixon’s articles of impeachment cited his campaign taking $200,000 from the chairman of McDonald’s, in return for which McDonald’s was allowed to raise the price of a quarter pounder cheeseburger.”
What a surprise – asinine regulations/arbitrary government price controls breed political corruption.
Midway through 1971 Nixon imposed wage and price freezes nationwide to control inflation from exiting the gold standard. It was supposed to only last a few months and instead was kept in force in some form or other for about 3 years. Probably why MickeyD’s CEO used bribery to get a price hike that should have been just doing business any other time.
…”bribery was cited as part of the bill of particulars supporting all of the articles of impeachment.”[1]
It’s true that McDonald’s should be able to charge whatever they want for their products, assuming it has sufficient competition in the burger marketplace, however, correlating bribery to regulation avoids the little inconvenient issue of character and values. Ultimately, it was McDonald’s quest for profit, and Nixon’s insatiable appetite for power that lead them to bribery and fraud.
[1] Bribery, Fraud. Solicited and obtained for the reelection campaign of President Nixon, in June, July and
August, 1972, from Ray A. Kroc, Chairman of the Board of McDonald’s, Inc., contributions of $200,000, in
exchange for permission from the Price Commission, first denied on May 21, 1972, then granted on
September 8, 1972, to raise the price of the McDonald’s quarterpounder cheeseburger, in violation of article II, section 4 of the Constitution and Section 201, 372, 872 and 1505 of the Criminal Code.
Source: http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/1025/articlesNixon.pdf