Friday, August 20, 2004
"We have done something huge." - FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub
Yesterday, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) passed new rules to take effect in 2005 which are aimed at limiting the controversial fundraising by independent political groups. Many of these groups, known as 527s for the section of the tax code under which they were organized, have received massive donations in the millions of dollars from very wealthy donors, in the process circumventing at least the spirit of McCain-Feingold in the eyes of their critics.
The major new regulation would affect the way independent groups solicit donations. If an appeal to donors states that any portion of the funds will be used to support or defeat a candidate, then an individual can't contribute more than $5,000 to that group, the federal limit on giving to political action committees. So, the $5,000 limit kicks in for "Send us money to send Bush back to Crawford" or "Help us spread the word that Kerry is unfit to serve as president". Or it would if the regulations took effect this year, at least.
It is unclear whether the new regulations would keep out the million-dollar contributions from the wealthy financier crowd or, as FEC Commissioner Scott Thomas believes, would just amount to "tinkering".
What is clear is that regular Americans are locked out of the political process way before the debate ever gets to the question of whether to limit individual donations to independent groups to $5,000. Commissioner Weintraub's assertion that the FEC's actions were huge is unfortunately typical of the kind of thinking which has dominated the discussion about campaign finance reform -- it ignores the extent to which the rights of the vast majority of Americans are traded away and is instead guided by the wealthy interests and entrenched incumbents who control our political process. How many Americans can afford to give $5,000 to one of these groups? How about $2,000 to a candidate? And these are supposed to be victories for the reform movement.
Enough already. For politicians, courts, governmental agencies, and reformers alike: if you want to be serious about democracy in America, can the self-congratulatory talk of "huge" improvements and start working towards reforms that ensure equal political voice for all Americans.
Yesterday, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) passed new rules to take effect in 2005 which are aimed at limiting the controversial fundraising by independent political groups. Many of these groups, known as 527s for the section of the tax code under which they were organized, have received massive donations in the millions of dollars from very wealthy donors, in the process circumventing at least the spirit of McCain-Feingold in the eyes of their critics.
The major new regulation would affect the way independent groups solicit donations. If an appeal to donors states that any portion of the funds will be used to support or defeat a candidate, then an individual can't contribute more than $5,000 to that group, the federal limit on giving to political action committees. So, the $5,000 limit kicks in for "Send us money to send Bush back to Crawford" or "Help us spread the word that Kerry is unfit to serve as president". Or it would if the regulations took effect this year, at least.
It is unclear whether the new regulations would keep out the million-dollar contributions from the wealthy financier crowd or, as FEC Commissioner Scott Thomas believes, would just amount to "tinkering".
What is clear is that regular Americans are locked out of the political process way before the debate ever gets to the question of whether to limit individual donations to independent groups to $5,000. Commissioner Weintraub's assertion that the FEC's actions were huge is unfortunately typical of the kind of thinking which has dominated the discussion about campaign finance reform -- it ignores the extent to which the rights of the vast majority of Americans are traded away and is instead guided by the wealthy interests and entrenched incumbents who control our political process. How many Americans can afford to give $5,000 to one of these groups? How about $2,000 to a candidate? And these are supposed to be victories for the reform movement.
Enough already. For politicians, courts, governmental agencies, and reformers alike: if you want to be serious about democracy in America, can the self-congratulatory talk of "huge" improvements and start working towards reforms that ensure equal political voice for all Americans.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Second Circuit Says Campaign Spending Limits Are Constitutional
Yesterday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that mandatory spending limits for political campaigns can be constitutional. In Landell v. Sorrell, the court stated that Vermont had established two compelling interests in support of its spending limits - "preventing the reality and appearance of corruption and protecting the time of candidates and elected officials." The court remanded the case back to the district court to determine whether Vermont had narrowly tailored its law to meet those compelling interests.
The court also upheld the Vermont law's limits of between $200 and $400 on contributions to candidates made by individuals and political action committees.
The decision on spending limits is a big step forward for efforts to reduce the influence of big money in our elections. This past spring, the Tenth Circuit issued a conflicting opinion in Homans v. Albuquerque, a case dealing with the spending limits passed by the people of Albuquerque, so yesterday's decision may pave the way for the Supreme Court to resolve the matter this fall. In doing so, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to reconsider the rushed and misguided reasoning of Buckley v. Valeo, a 1976 Supreme Court decision which wrongly equated money with free speech.
For more perspective and info, check out our posts on Homans from August 17th and June 4th, Derek's op-ed in the Albuquerque Tribune, or the National Voting Rights Institute, which has been working to get the Supreme Court to revisit the Buckley decision for some time.
Yesterday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that mandatory spending limits for political campaigns can be constitutional. In Landell v. Sorrell, the court stated that Vermont had established two compelling interests in support of its spending limits - "preventing the reality and appearance of corruption and protecting the time of candidates and elected officials." The court remanded the case back to the district court to determine whether Vermont had narrowly tailored its law to meet those compelling interests.
The court also upheld the Vermont law's limits of between $200 and $400 on contributions to candidates made by individuals and political action committees.
The decision on spending limits is a big step forward for efforts to reduce the influence of big money in our elections. This past spring, the Tenth Circuit issued a conflicting opinion in Homans v. Albuquerque, a case dealing with the spending limits passed by the people of Albuquerque, so yesterday's decision may pave the way for the Supreme Court to resolve the matter this fall. In doing so, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to reconsider the rushed and misguided reasoning of Buckley v. Valeo, a 1976 Supreme Court decision which wrongly equated money with free speech.
For more perspective and info, check out our posts on Homans from August 17th and June 4th, Derek's op-ed in the Albuquerque Tribune, or the National Voting Rights Institute, which has been working to get the Supreme Court to revisit the Buckley decision for some time.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
McGreevey Benefactor Kushner Pleads Guilty
Charles Kushner, a billionaire developer and the biggest benefactor of New Jersey's resigned-but-still-in-office Governor McGreevey, pled guilty today to eighteen separate charges. The charges range from claiming charitable gifts as business expenses to interfering with a federal investigation to using his employees' names to disguise illegal campaign contributions. Not to mention blackmailing his brother-in-law.
As explained in our July 14 post, Kushner and his employees gave some $1.5 million to McGreevey's various campaign funds, in addition to the millions of dollars he gave to the Democratic Party and mostly Democratic candidates. (Rudolph Giuliani stands out as one Republican who Kushner helped to bankroll - - to the tune of $60,000.) For previous illegal campaign contributions, Kushner was fined more than $500,000 by the Federal Election Commission this spring.
Kushner was able to exploit current New Jersey law, which allows individuals and corporations to give gubernatorial candidates $2600, by using the many different corporations under his control to make contributions. Even if such exploitation didn't exist, allowing corporations - who are ultimately owned by individuals, and who receive a number of legal protections and benefits which advantage them over individual people - to contribute to candidates is a bad idea. It grants those people whose interests are represented by corporations - more often than not the very wealthy in society - more say in selecting candidates for public office than the rest of us, who are already disadvantaged by the super-high contribution limits which allow wealthy individuals to give way more than we can afford.
New Jersey has a lot of options to clean up its democracy, which is good, because there is much work to be done. One such option is clean elections, where candidates who collect enough signatures and small donations agree to limit their campaign expenditures in return for receiving public money. On August 11, Governor McGreevey okayed a pilot program to test clean elections in a few districts. Even if the pilot program is successful and is adopted statewide in New Jersey, it will not necessarily guarantee regular folks their rightful voice in New Jersey politics, but it is a step in the right direction.
Kushner reportedly faces up to two years in prison, in addition to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.
Charles Kushner, a billionaire developer and the biggest benefactor of New Jersey's resigned-but-still-in-office Governor McGreevey, pled guilty today to eighteen separate charges. The charges range from claiming charitable gifts as business expenses to interfering with a federal investigation to using his employees' names to disguise illegal campaign contributions. Not to mention blackmailing his brother-in-law.
As explained in our July 14 post, Kushner and his employees gave some $1.5 million to McGreevey's various campaign funds, in addition to the millions of dollars he gave to the Democratic Party and mostly Democratic candidates. (Rudolph Giuliani stands out as one Republican who Kushner helped to bankroll - - to the tune of $60,000.) For previous illegal campaign contributions, Kushner was fined more than $500,000 by the Federal Election Commission this spring.
Kushner was able to exploit current New Jersey law, which allows individuals and corporations to give gubernatorial candidates $2600, by using the many different corporations under his control to make contributions. Even if such exploitation didn't exist, allowing corporations - who are ultimately owned by individuals, and who receive a number of legal protections and benefits which advantage them over individual people - to contribute to candidates is a bad idea. It grants those people whose interests are represented by corporations - more often than not the very wealthy in society - more say in selecting candidates for public office than the rest of us, who are already disadvantaged by the super-high contribution limits which allow wealthy individuals to give way more than we can afford.
New Jersey has a lot of options to clean up its democracy, which is good, because there is much work to be done. One such option is clean elections, where candidates who collect enough signatures and small donations agree to limit their campaign expenditures in return for receiving public money. On August 11, Governor McGreevey okayed a pilot program to test clean elections in a few districts. Even if the pilot program is successful and is adopted statewide in New Jersey, it will not necessarily guarantee regular folks their rightful voice in New Jersey politics, but it is a step in the right direction.
Kushner reportedly faces up to two years in prison, in addition to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Money Does Not Equal Free Speech
The city of Albuquerque continues its fight to maintain its overwhelmingly voter-supported mandatory spending limits for mayoral and city council elections. As Derek's op-ed in today's The Albuquerque Tribune says, the spending limits have kept special interest cash from dominating elections while simultaneously encouraging vigorous competition between candidates, two great things for our democracy.
Check out the press release from the National Voting Rights Institute for more information about efforts to get the US Supreme Court to revisit Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the foolishly-decided case which overturned post-Watergate efforts to clean up our federal government and still hampers efforts to get big money out of politics to this day. Buckley wrongly equates money with free speech, basically allowing fat cat robber-baron types to pony up huge amounts of cash to distort the democratic process.
A successful effort in getting the Supreme Court to overturn Buckley (see Derek's op-ed for some great examples of previous cases where this happened) might be one of the most important steps along the way for regular Americans to take our democracy back. You can use our Citizen's Toolkit to find your Senator or Congressperson to let them know how you feel about money in politics, or to tell them they should be playing a role in building public pressure on the Supreme Court to reconsider Buckley.
Also see NVRI here and my prior post here for more background on the case.
The city of Albuquerque continues its fight to maintain its overwhelmingly voter-supported mandatory spending limits for mayoral and city council elections. As Derek's op-ed in today's The Albuquerque Tribune says, the spending limits have kept special interest cash from dominating elections while simultaneously encouraging vigorous competition between candidates, two great things for our democracy.
Check out the press release from the National Voting Rights Institute for more information about efforts to get the US Supreme Court to revisit Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the foolishly-decided case which overturned post-Watergate efforts to clean up our federal government and still hampers efforts to get big money out of politics to this day. Buckley wrongly equates money with free speech, basically allowing fat cat robber-baron types to pony up huge amounts of cash to distort the democratic process.
A successful effort in getting the Supreme Court to overturn Buckley (see Derek's op-ed for some great examples of previous cases where this happened) might be one of the most important steps along the way for regular Americans to take our democracy back. You can use our Citizen's Toolkit to find your Senator or Congressperson to let them know how you feel about money in politics, or to tell them they should be playing a role in building public pressure on the Supreme Court to reconsider Buckley.
Also see NVRI here and my prior post here for more background on the case.
Monday, August 16, 2004
Colorado Initiative to Divide Its Electoral Votes Proportionately
As John Sanko of The Rocky Mountain News reports, Colorado's Secretary of State certified an initiative for this fall's ballot that would change the way the state's electoral votes are distributed.
Like all states but Maine and Nebraska, Colorado currently uses a system that gives all its electoral votes to the presidential candidate that receives the most votes. Amendment 36, as the initiative is known, would allocate Colorado's nine votes in the Electoral College proportionately to the popular votes a presidential candidate received. The amendment, if successful, would apply to this year's election.
The idea encompassed in Amendment 36 is generally a good thing. Allocating a state's electoral votes proportionately decreases the chance that the interests and political voice of a substantial minority of voters within the state will not be recognized in voting for our nation's highest office.
In other words, whether a Republican/Independent in a traditionally Democratic state like California or a Democrat/Independent in a traditionally Republican state like Texas, your vote would count towards some number of electoral votes. This in turn encourages more voters to go to the polls - minority voters, because their votes are no longer overwhelmed by a simple majority, and majority voters, because minority voters are much more likely to vote.
Opponents to this system point out a couple drawbacks. One the one hand, they argue that the proportionate allocation of a state's electoral votes diminishes that state's importance to presidential candidates by reducing the likely number of electoral votes a candidate might win. As long as other states maintain their winner-take-all approach, this supposedly reduces the amount of attention the candidates give to a state and diminishes a state's influence in regional or national affairs.
A different set of opponents worry that the proposed initiative does not go far enough - the only way to achieve the full promise of democracy in the U.S. is to switch to a system of direct representation where the winner of the popular vote wins the presidency, regardless of the composition of voting by state.
Regardless, the Colorado initiative is a step in the right direction - more Americans would have a more direct role in electing our president than do so now. If more or all states would adopt a similar system, it would likely both re-enfranchise the political voice of millions of unrepresented Americans in those states and also cut back the theoretical reduction in a state's influence when it moves towards a more democratic system.
As John Sanko of The Rocky Mountain News reports, Colorado's Secretary of State certified an initiative for this fall's ballot that would change the way the state's electoral votes are distributed.
Like all states but Maine and Nebraska, Colorado currently uses a system that gives all its electoral votes to the presidential candidate that receives the most votes. Amendment 36, as the initiative is known, would allocate Colorado's nine votes in the Electoral College proportionately to the popular votes a presidential candidate received. The amendment, if successful, would apply to this year's election.
The idea encompassed in Amendment 36 is generally a good thing. Allocating a state's electoral votes proportionately decreases the chance that the interests and political voice of a substantial minority of voters within the state will not be recognized in voting for our nation's highest office.
In other words, whether a Republican/Independent in a traditionally Democratic state like California or a Democrat/Independent in a traditionally Republican state like Texas, your vote would count towards some number of electoral votes. This in turn encourages more voters to go to the polls - minority voters, because their votes are no longer overwhelmed by a simple majority, and majority voters, because minority voters are much more likely to vote.
Opponents to this system point out a couple drawbacks. One the one hand, they argue that the proportionate allocation of a state's electoral votes diminishes that state's importance to presidential candidates by reducing the likely number of electoral votes a candidate might win. As long as other states maintain their winner-take-all approach, this supposedly reduces the amount of attention the candidates give to a state and diminishes a state's influence in regional or national affairs.
A different set of opponents worry that the proposed initiative does not go far enough - the only way to achieve the full promise of democracy in the U.S. is to switch to a system of direct representation where the winner of the popular vote wins the presidency, regardless of the composition of voting by state.
Regardless, the Colorado initiative is a step in the right direction - more Americans would have a more direct role in electing our president than do so now. If more or all states would adopt a similar system, it would likely both re-enfranchise the political voice of millions of unrepresented Americans in those states and also cut back the theoretical reduction in a state's influence when it moves towards a more democratic system.
