The $6 billion problem
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Mitt Romney’s supporters spent more than $700 million and their candidate lost this year. But Nick Nyhart, president and CEO of Public Campaign, which advocates for campaign finance reform, argues that big money won even if a handful of high-profile conservative billionaires fell short of their goals.
In an interview on billmoyers.com, Nyhart says that donors like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson may not be happy with results of the presidential election and a small increase in the Democratic majority in the Senate, but they were successful in retaining many of the seats that tea party candidates won in 2010.
More important, Nyhart said everyone loses when candidates in both parties become more dependent on big donors to fend off attacks from SuperPACs and other ideological groups.
Nyhart advocates for a system of small donations plus public financing to replace the current system. He also seeks broader reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court or the Constitution.
To get the big money out we either need a changed court or a changed Constitution. And it’s not just about Citizens United. There was a series of court decisions. Citizens United has been the most publicized, but there were other ones, like Wisconsin Right to Life, or the McComish decision in Arizona, that have chipped away at the framework. Even before Citizens United, we had a system tilted towards billionaires. In fact, all these billionaires could’ve spent that same money influencing elections before Citizens United. The case that gave them the right to do that, or at least the interpretations of the case, was Buckley. So it’s not enough to overturn Citizens United. You really need a court that views speech differently and understands it in a different way than the Roberts court does. If there’s an opening on the Supreme Court in the next four years, we need a justice who’s within the mainstream of the American people, and certainly the thinking of the founders of the country on the issue of speech and the power of ordinary citizens in our democracy.
Otherwise, we’ll need to go through a longer process and amend the Constitution. There are efforts that have begun to do that and the results are not to be sneezed at. Right now there are 24 returning senators who have introduced or co-sponsored constitutional amendment measures that would allow reasonable limits to be placed on individual expenditures in politics. In the House, there are 73 representatives in the returning class who favor a constitutional amendment.
Nyhart supports the Fair Elections Now Act in Congress that borrows from several campaign finance models in place at the state level. In Maine and Arizona, for example, candidates must collect a large number of $5 contributions to qualify for public financing. In New York City, candidates got a 6:1 match for small contributions of $175 or less.
Nearly 80 percent of Americans want campaign finance reform. Is anyone out there hopeful that we’ll actually get it?
November 9, 2012 - 3:54 PM
What the conservative/tea party big moneyed people fail to understand is this – their money can impact House Of Representatives elections, and very well. But not the Senate, and not the Presidency. They can radicalize a district. To radicalize an entire state, especially when their ‘plan’ is so exclusive to such a large portion of the people in that state, is not very likely. The same goes for the nation. Just as the GOP discovered the ‘Southern Strategy in 1968, they’ve ignored the strategy – yet unnamed – by the Democrats.
Personally, I think it is pretty funny how Karl Rove managed to waste $300 million from these billionaires. Sure, they don’t feel it in the wallet, but they feel it in their egos, which are even more important to them.
When employers are literally telling their employees how to vote, I think this particular “battle” is simply and completely, lost. What difference the money makes is a debate topic, not something the people who count on that cash for their own campaigns are going to tackle.
We know beyond doubt that honesty, integrity, intelligence, credibility and capability are subjective and no longer concrete. There simply are no arbiters we all agree we can trust. “Your” money, ideas, ideals, candidates, media, friends and competence are just going to be better than “theirs” and we all “know it”.
Let me be clear, I think the Citizens United decision was a mistake, but is it really any different than the influence unions have had over elections for 100 years?
And for anyone who believes money doesn’t have an influence on politicians, look at how much both candidates raised. They would not spend that much time and energy raising that much money if they did not know the power it would have. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance
For there to be a winner, there has to be a loser. This time it was the Republicans and their very flawed message and campaign strategy. But the Democrats in no way came away with a mandate.