Friday, March 19, 2004
Citizens in Petaluma Take Matters unto Their Own Hands
After finding that their current laws that limit campaign contributions to $500 were too weak to prevent development interest from unduly influencing who gets elected to local office, citizens are fighting back. They are working to qualify a ballot measure that would lower the limit to $200.
The developers aren't happy, but they'll still have plenty of influence given that they have nearly 200 members in Petaluma. They just won't be able to outspend other citizens who have less of a financial stake in city business.
Turns out that the citizens are trying to reverse an action that the politicians took a year ago to increase the contribution limit from $200 to $500. Those incumbent politicians claim that they raised the amount of money they could raise in order to make it easier for challengers to defeat them. Does something sound fishy? It should. Incumbents usually dramatically outraise challengers, and higher limits allow them to do so even more.
Details can be found here in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
After finding that their current laws that limit campaign contributions to $500 were too weak to prevent development interest from unduly influencing who gets elected to local office, citizens are fighting back. They are working to qualify a ballot measure that would lower the limit to $200.
The developers aren't happy, but they'll still have plenty of influence given that they have nearly 200 members in Petaluma. They just won't be able to outspend other citizens who have less of a financial stake in city business.
Turns out that the citizens are trying to reverse an action that the politicians took a year ago to increase the contribution limit from $200 to $500. Those incumbent politicians claim that they raised the amount of money they could raise in order to make it easier for challengers to defeat them. Does something sound fishy? It should. Incumbents usually dramatically outraise challengers, and higher limits allow them to do so even more.
Details can be found here in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Poll Finds That Most of Us Have Little Say in Government
A recent poll finds that "people are really unhappy about their role, or lack of it, in the democratic process." Surprise, surprise.
When asked which groups have lots of influence over government, 68% of folks said "large campaign contributors" and "large corporations." Just 20% said the general public. Roughly two-thirds supported reforms such as term limits, abolishing the electoral college, and greater use of citizen ballot measures.
A recent poll finds that "people are really unhappy about their role, or lack of it, in the democratic process." Surprise, surprise.
When asked which groups have lots of influence over government, 68% of folks said "large campaign contributors" and "large corporations." Just 20% said the general public. Roughly two-thirds supported reforms such as term limits, abolishing the electoral college, and greater use of citizen ballot measures.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Mutually Assured Corruption
You would think that the one thing you could count on would be that the Democrats and Republicans would be at each others' throats, always eager to point out wrongdoings in the other camp. While at times this makes it difficult to reach agreement on important issues, at least they might keep each other honest when it comes to enforcing ethics laws. Right?
Wrong. Today's Washington Post describes how the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have basically agreed not to investigate ethics charges against each other. Last week, the committee in charge of investigating House ethics violations said that many members may not be filing complaints because "of retaliatory complaints against members of their own party."
In other words, both sides have dirty hands, so they'd rather sweep their problems under the carpet.
Dick Armey, the former Majority Leader of the House, remembers when his party took over in 1994 in part due to ethics violations of the other party. "The Republican majority began with the whole reform movement, going after the House bank and all that," he said. "We were great reformers, we were going to have the ethical standards." Today, he said, "it's not a very pretty picture with the House."
Among the potential ethics violations that the House has not investigated are a report that a political committee run by Tom Delay has violated the law, newspaper accounts of Delay, Billy Tauzin, and Joe Barton offered legislative help in exchange for $56,000 in contributions from Westar Energy interests, and a report that the third ranking Republican slipped in provisions to a bill to aid a tobacco company that his son lobbies for.
It's important for our elected officials to behave with the highest ethical standards. But this example may show that strong ethics rules aren't enough to have a true democracy. Our bigger problem is that we have unethical people running for office in the first place, and our campaign finance system actually gives these bad apples a leg up on upstanding candidates who don't pander to big contributors. Until we fix our systems of elections to get the right people in office, we'll continue to find that the people in office are behaving badly.
You would think that the one thing you could count on would be that the Democrats and Republicans would be at each others' throats, always eager to point out wrongdoings in the other camp. While at times this makes it difficult to reach agreement on important issues, at least they might keep each other honest when it comes to enforcing ethics laws. Right?
Wrong. Today's Washington Post describes how the Democrats and Republicans in Congress have basically agreed not to investigate ethics charges against each other. Last week, the committee in charge of investigating House ethics violations said that many members may not be filing complaints because "of retaliatory complaints against members of their own party."
In other words, both sides have dirty hands, so they'd rather sweep their problems under the carpet.
Dick Armey, the former Majority Leader of the House, remembers when his party took over in 1994 in part due to ethics violations of the other party. "The Republican majority began with the whole reform movement, going after the House bank and all that," he said. "We were great reformers, we were going to have the ethical standards." Today, he said, "it's not a very pretty picture with the House."
Among the potential ethics violations that the House has not investigated are a report that a political committee run by Tom Delay has violated the law, newspaper accounts of Delay, Billy Tauzin, and Joe Barton offered legislative help in exchange for $56,000 in contributions from Westar Energy interests, and a report that the third ranking Republican slipped in provisions to a bill to aid a tobacco company that his son lobbies for.
It's important for our elected officials to behave with the highest ethical standards. But this example may show that strong ethics rules aren't enough to have a true democracy. Our bigger problem is that we have unethical people running for office in the first place, and our campaign finance system actually gives these bad apples a leg up on upstanding candidates who don't pander to big contributors. Until we fix our systems of elections to get the right people in office, we'll continue to find that the people in office are behaving badly.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Double Dipping in Florida
Dennis Barlow has a business that would benefit from the construction of a new highway. But some folks are opposed to the highway. In a democracy, you'd think that the way to resolve this would be for everyone to say their piece, and then do whatever the majority decides. Well, not in Florida.
Instead, Barlow decided that the way to get what he wanted was to spend big money trying to elect politicians who agree with him. Florida election law allows him to give $500 to a candidate, much more than most of us could afford -- especially if we don't expect to make some big profit off some government project like Barlow does.
But even this advantage wasn't enough. He wanted to give $5000, ten times the legal limit. He was able to do it because his politician of choice, Senator Lee Constantine, has both a campaign committee, and a double dipping account called a "Committee of Continuous Existence."
Constantine says there's no problem here. You see, he isn't influenced by the contribution, he already supports the highway. I don't do things for someone because somebody supports me," he quips. But, he happily admits that he needs the money in order to become Senate president. This would no doubt help him get things like this highway approved. "If you're going to run for a leadership position, the rules have changed," Constantine says. "To win or be a player in this thing . . . you have to be in the game as everybody else is."
Constantine can then use this double dipping money to help elect fellow politicians who will both support his bid for Senate president and support his highway idea.
So, according to Constantine, the rest of us are supposed to be comforted in the fact that big business interests can get their allies into legislative leadership posts by virtue of big money.
Or, maybe we should change the rules back, so that regular people matter more than money.
Details can be found here in the Orlando Sentinel.
Dennis Barlow has a business that would benefit from the construction of a new highway. But some folks are opposed to the highway. In a democracy, you'd think that the way to resolve this would be for everyone to say their piece, and then do whatever the majority decides. Well, not in Florida.
Instead, Barlow decided that the way to get what he wanted was to spend big money trying to elect politicians who agree with him. Florida election law allows him to give $500 to a candidate, much more than most of us could afford -- especially if we don't expect to make some big profit off some government project like Barlow does.
But even this advantage wasn't enough. He wanted to give $5000, ten times the legal limit. He was able to do it because his politician of choice, Senator Lee Constantine, has both a campaign committee, and a double dipping account called a "Committee of Continuous Existence."
Constantine says there's no problem here. You see, he isn't influenced by the contribution, he already supports the highway. I don't do things for someone because somebody supports me," he quips. But, he happily admits that he needs the money in order to become Senate president. This would no doubt help him get things like this highway approved. "If you're going to run for a leadership position, the rules have changed," Constantine says. "To win or be a player in this thing . . . you have to be in the game as everybody else is."
Constantine can then use this double dipping money to help elect fellow politicians who will both support his bid for Senate president and support his highway idea.
So, according to Constantine, the rest of us are supposed to be comforted in the fact that big business interests can get their allies into legislative leadership posts by virtue of big money.
Or, maybe we should change the rules back, so that regular people matter more than money.
Details can be found here in the Orlando Sentinel.
Monday, March 15, 2004
The Super Rich vs. The Simply Rich vs. The Rest of Us
An interesting trend is developing in the financing of presidential campaigns. The biggest donors, the super rich types who give upwards of a million bucks, seem to be supporting the Democrats and a host of liberal issues. Meanwhile, the simply rich, those who can give upwards of a thousand bucks, overwhelmingly favor the Republicans.
Here's an Associated Press story talking about how the Republicans are trying to catch up to the Democrats in the million-dollar plus category. Evidently, twenty out of the top 24 donors who gave more than a million to national parties in the last election cycle gave to the Democrats. On the other hand, President Bush has clearly show that Republicans have an advantage among the donors who can give $1000 - $2000. Another AP story here says that the Republicans are doing better among national parties at the $25,000 level.
The article speculates as to why this might be the case. Democratic big donors might be more ideological type billionaires like George Soros whereas Republican donors more pragmatic CEOs and other big business types.
If these trends hold up, it would mean that campaign finance systems that have no limits would tend to favor Democrats whereas campaign finance systems that tend to set contribution limits in the $1000-$25,000 range would favor Republicans.
None of this does much to favor the rest of us. To do that, we'd need a campaign finance system where contributions from ordinary citizens drove the process. That would put the parties on even footing, and make the politicians accountable to regular folks.
An interesting trend is developing in the financing of presidential campaigns. The biggest donors, the super rich types who give upwards of a million bucks, seem to be supporting the Democrats and a host of liberal issues. Meanwhile, the simply rich, those who can give upwards of a thousand bucks, overwhelmingly favor the Republicans.
Here's an Associated Press story talking about how the Republicans are trying to catch up to the Democrats in the million-dollar plus category. Evidently, twenty out of the top 24 donors who gave more than a million to national parties in the last election cycle gave to the Democrats. On the other hand, President Bush has clearly show that Republicans have an advantage among the donors who can give $1000 - $2000. Another AP story here says that the Republicans are doing better among national parties at the $25,000 level.
The article speculates as to why this might be the case. Democratic big donors might be more ideological type billionaires like George Soros whereas Republican donors more pragmatic CEOs and other big business types.
If these trends hold up, it would mean that campaign finance systems that have no limits would tend to favor Democrats whereas campaign finance systems that tend to set contribution limits in the $1000-$25,000 range would favor Republicans.
None of this does much to favor the rest of us. To do that, we'd need a campaign finance system where contributions from ordinary citizens drove the process. That would put the parties on even footing, and make the politicians accountable to regular folks.
