Currently, there is an national open-ended discussion going on about the role of money in politics. I and many others on both the left and the right have previously argued that our legislative process is corrupted by the need for office-holders solicit and accept private donations in order to run for office and then stay in that office once elected. Under such a system, our law-makers are forced to attend to the legislative wishes of those wealthy few who can afford to make donations, regardless of whether those wishes benefit or harm the majority of citizens. The obvious solution, as suggested by myself and others, is to prohibit all private donations to office-seekers, and to fund all elections with public funds. In this way, law-makers would no longer be beholden to the select wealthy few, and would be more likely to legislate in a way that is agreeable to the majority of tax-payers.
For those interested in reading some more about campaign finance reform, here are some links:
* http://www.dailykos.com/...
* http://www.dailykos.com/...
** http://www.dailykos.com/...
Recently, during the primary caucuses in Iowa we saw another sorry aspect of modern day election campaign: the functioning of the Super-PAC. A Super-PAC (political action committee) is an organization that advocates for or against issues and policy. This article is about the Super-PACs and the problems Super-PACs pose to those who want to see fair elections and to remove the inherently corrupting influence of private money on our political process. My main point is that both the necessity of public officials to solicit and receive donations AND the activities of Super-PACs are damaging our democratic system of government, and that these two phenomenon of modern American politics require different solutions and approaches. In this article I will be offering some of my opinions and suggestions, but I do not believe I have all the answers, and so I hope to start a discussion with others about the role of Super-PACs in our elections.
The news out of Iowa was that TV attack ads critical of Newt Gingrich ran constantly on the local airwaves and caused voters to turn against Speaker Gingrich. The TV ads were made and produced by a Super-PAC that favors Mitt Romney over Gingrich. Speaker Gingrich vowed publicly that he would run a positive campaign, complained bitterly about the negative ads, and asked his opponent Romney to stop running the ads. Mitt Romney pointed out in reply that his campaign did not run those ads, and that indeed his campaign was enjoined by law from communicating with the group that ran those ads. Mitt Romney could not have stopped those ads even if he wanted to, though of course Romney was perfectly happy to see TV ads attacking his opponent. In the end, Romney eked out a tie with Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, and Gingrich finished a distant fourth place.
Now it is perfectly possible that those TV attack ads made and produced by a Super-PAC had nothing to do with the final results of the Iowa caucuses. It is possible voters did not need TV ads to tell them what to think about Mr. Romney or Gingrich (full disclosure: I think both Romney and Gingrich would make lousy presidents, and I do not belong to nor support the political campaigns of either of them). Both the role of the Super-PAC in modern American political campaigns has become a front-page story, and for good reason.
A Super-PAC is a private group organized to advocate for a political issue or legislation. Officially, these are called “independent-expenditure only committees” which can raise money from individuals, corporations, unions, other groups, and other PACs. By law, Super-PACs are independent from the politicians themselves, and can not coordinate with political candidates or parties, and are required to disclose their donors.
Recent court cases have granted new powers to the Super-PACs. In Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission, the US Supreme Court ruled that the government can not prohibit unions and corporations from spending money on political issues. Additionally, in Speechnow.org vs. Federal Election Commission, the Federal Court of Appeals for the DC circuit ruled that contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures (i.e. independent of a political campaign) can not be limited. These two rulings allowed groups and individuals to make unlimited donations for issues and advocacy, but not to the legislators or office-seekers themselves.
While independent of the candidates themselves, Super-PACs may openly support candidates for office. This is perfectly legal, and exactly what we saw in the republican Iowa campaign: a Super-PAC that had millions of dollars to spend and was supportive of Romney using its money to blanket the airwaves with attacks of Romney's rival. Romney, though benefiting from the ads, could rightfully claim he did not make the ads and could not even communicate with the organization that did make the ads. While this is true, it ignores the fact that the Super-PAC that did raise the money and produced the attack ads (Restore Our Future PAC) was started and run by Charles R. Spies, Carl Forti, and Larry McCarthy; respectively, former general counsel, former political director, and former publicist to the Romney 2008 presidential campaign. So while the Restore Our Future PAC is supposedly independent of the Romney campaign, it looks very much like the Restore Our Future PAC is a portion of the Romney campaign split off and “gone to the mattresses”.
So now we can see how a Super-PAC may be a problem for decent and honest politicking. A Super-PAC may raise unlimited amounts of money and spend it freely on advertising. We saw a similar thing in the 2004 presidential campaign when John Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam War decorated for heroism under fire, was portrayed as a communist-kissing coward by a Super-PAC supportive of George Bush, who sat out the Vietnam War with a cushy stateside posting with the Texas Air National Guard. Among conservatives, Purple Heart band-aids mocking the service of John Kerry remain a popular treasure. In both these cases, the Bush and the Romney campaigns can claim no responsibility for the ads and their veracity, while enjoying all the political benefits of seeing an opponent under attack. Indeed, for the office-seeker, the Super-PAC is the perfect vehicle for knocking off opponents: all of the benefits without any of the responsibility.
In sum, Super-PACs pose a problem for American politics by raising unlimited amounts of money, spend it widely on advertising, allow politicians to escape responsibility for their messaging, and could potentially change the outcome of an election.
An important point here is that the business of supporting a candidate for office, and supporting a political position or policy are two different things and should not be treated in the same fashion. True, both activities may involve donating money, and both may involve advertisements in the media, but they are not the same. My opinion, as I have stated above and elsewhere, is that politicians should not be allowed to accept private donations, lest our law-makers be then tempted to write and pass laws that favor their wealthy donors to the detriment of the majority of society. A politician, because of the office of public service that they hold, should not receive private money. Let those who wish to support a candidate for office do so with their talents and their time and their energies and efforts.
So, should the same blanket exclusion be placed on supporting a political position or policy? If we are to limit the activities of Super-PACs, we would need to do one or more of the following: limit the rights of individuals or groups to spend or donate money to advocate for an issue or policy, limit the rights of individuals or groups to peaceably express an opinion about an issue or policy, limit the right of an individual to join a group that advocates for an issue or a policy, or limit the rights of individuals or groups to lobby their representative or government. All of these things are accomplished by Super-PACs, and without giving a single dollar to a legislator or an office-seeker. In my opinion, we can not realistically do any of these things and still call ourselves “the land of the free”.
Any limit we place on the amount of money someone spends on defunding Planned Parenthood or lobbying for greater off-shore oil drilling is also a limit we impose on someone else advocating for greater environmental protections or universal health care. Everyone has something they want from the government, and everyone should be allowed the freedom to lobby their government for that thing they want. I think we should be encouraging that kind of participating in our governance, not limiting it.
OK what about attack ads? Should we allow groups connected in fact but not in name to a political campaign to run ads that obscure or misconstrue reality or make blatantly false statements? In fact, we allow this sort of behavior in almost all other commercial endeavors.
Part of the problem with Super-PACs and attacks ads is the problem with all advertising and media. All ads want something specific from the viewers, and no ad is under any obligation to the truth. Ford wants us to think their cars are the best, Tide tells us their soap is superior to all others, and political candidates will tell us the other guy is a crackhead with a thing for young boys (which may actually be the case for some of those “family-values” politicians). Advertising is routinely inaccurate, or outright false, and yet advertising obviously works: it works to “sell” a politician or an idea just as well as to sell a brand of soap. Nor is any ad required to reveal who paid for or placed the ad. In this, the political attack ad is no different from other ads.
Another part of the problem is the pervasiveness of advertisements. Ford routinely criticizes Chevy, but we hardly even notice because of the sheer number of ads we see. Political campaigns for national office only come every two years and the relative rarity of political ads gives them more impact with the public. That and the naming of actual public figures by name, another rarity in the world of advertising.
And part of the problem with Super-PACs and attack ads is the extent to which American voters get all their political information from the TV. Unfortunately, well over 90% of the electorate gets all their political ideas from the TV and usually only in the week immediately proceeding an election. This fact works to the favor of those office-seekers with the largest advertising budget. In my opinion, voters should demand more from the office-seekers who want their vote, but election day comes regardless of what voters demand and what office-seekers will deliver. Many voter simply respond by not voting, to the detriment of our democratic system of government, and to the benefit of the politicians with more ads.
So for me, the question about how to fund a political campaign is very straight-forward (use public money exclusively), but the question about Super-PAC abuses are much more difficult. I don't see a obvious solution to the advertisements of Super-PACs, and I am not even sure there is a problem to solve. Yes, attack ads are slimy and have the potential to change the outcome of an election. However, no one can say for certain that in the case of John Kerry in 2004 and Newt Gingrich in Iowa of 2012, the outcome would have been any different in that absence of attack ads. After all, we are talking about advertisements – which are not the source for facts or truth. To me, an attack ad says far more about the integrity and qualities of the person or organizations that benefit from the ad than what it tells me about the intended target. But this makes me a minority among the voting public
If there is a solution to the problem of attack ads, it perhaps best lies in better education for the voting public. And surprise, surprise, public education in America is losing funding and is heavily criticized by some of the same corporate and wealthy interests they enjoy unlimited spending on attack ads. I doubt this a coincidence. But if we are to work to improve the process of campaigning and elections to provide for a more democratic system of government, we must not eliminate the free expressions of opinion or the need to lobby the government along the way.