(via Dick Howe) Columnist Mark Shields writes about Marty Meehan’s major legacy in Congress: Getting enormous soft-money contributions — i.e. millions in legalized bribes — out of politics.
We need to remember that money’s domination of politics — which continues, of course — is the reason we don’t have universal health care. It’s the reason we waste billions in defense systems we don’t want or need. It’s why our political system seems powerless to address global warming. It’s why the oil and PhRMA industries are able to treat the federal government as their ATM. It is not too much to say that our campaign finance system costs lives, and threatens countless more.
And even though Shays/Meehan-McCain/Feingold have not been a panacea, the relatively increased influence of both the netroots and the religious right can be traced back to this reform. Political power has indeed moved away from money capital and towards social capital.
That’s a big deal. Yeah, Meehan tried to restrict blog fundraising, and he ironically hoarded millions of his own campaign cash in hopes of a Senate run. But that’s not what he ought to be remembered for. May all of our representatives show such leadership on this fundamental issue.
By the way, this morning there was a hearing on S. 1285, the Fair Elections Act, which would set up public financing for US Senate elections. Let’s take that next step.
Great post. If only public funding would be implemented somewhere in this country, people would see the huge difference it makes into better policy. I really believe if Clean Elections in MA had been allowed to succeed instead of being killed by Tom Finneran in 2002, that MA could have been a model for a new type of political funding system that works. Whatever taxpayers would pay in terms of public campaign funding would be returned many more times over in reduced spending which was slated only to cater to special (rich) interests.
Check out SEC. 505b (http://thomas.loc.go…):
<
p>
You need 2,000 qualifying contributions if you are a “major party” candidate, but 3,000 is you are a “minor party” or independent candidate. More work for candidates who don’t want to be beholden to the two old parties.
One way to clean up the mess we have in Washington is to suspend the current system of publicly electing senators and go back to the original way of the Constitution. It would take money COMPLETELY out of the equation for a senator and absent campaigning we would truly get a better more qualified person as a senator. Truly the upper chamber. Given the current system the Senate acts like a longer serving house of people’s representatives.
<
p>
I’ve come to this position only recently, but I think the founders had it right and we now have it wrong.
Do you think? And I’m also interested to know exactly how having the state legislatures, rather than the people themselves, elect the Senators would improve things.
We don’t have direct elections of presidents. The year 2000 clearly showed that. So there is nothing to scrap. We have direct elections of electors as it always has been. The states are able to decide on their own how their electors would be chosen. Maine does it differently than Massachusetts. Also there is nothing to stop any state from sending a slate of electors that is different than those popularly elected if the election is not certified.
Appointment of Senators by the State Legislatures would restore the balance of the legislature that the founders intended. The legislature was purposely set into an upper and lower house. The lower house, The House of Represenatives, was set up to represent the people and their passions. The upper house, the Senate, was envisioned to represent the States and was seen as a moderating force on the peoples house. That is why the Senate approves executive appointments because originally it was as if the legislatures of the individual states were approving the appointments through their legislatures.
<
p>
Going back to this system would at lease symbolically stop our slide in power towards the federal government and back to the states. I don’t think the founders ever envisioned as strong of a national government as we now have. Removing the direct election of Senators brought on by the 17th Amendment would also remove its deliberations from the passions of the day. It would go back to its role as a check on the House of Representatives.
<
p>
It would remove some special interest influence in national elections because obstensibly the senators would serve the states not the national mood. It would remove money from politics because most states already have contribution limits in place and they wouldn’t raise them because of their new aility to directly elect Senators.
The governmental structure Germany is similar to pre-17th amendment structure of the government of the US, but with important differences. Germany has a bi-cameral legislature comprising an “upper house” (the Bundesrat) and a “lower house” (the Bundestag). The members of the Bundesrat are selected by the legislatures of the respective states. The members of the Bundestag are elected by the eligible voters (with important nits that aren’t important in this discussion).
<
p>
The head of government is selected from the Bundestag–it would be similar to the Speaker of the House being the head of government.
<
p>
The important difference between the pre-17th amendment US structure and the German Bundesrat is that the Bundesrat is provided merely to represent the interests of the states in the government. (Germany comprises 16 states.) It does not have powers that were similar to the US senate pre-17th amendment. The Bundesrat can only block certain classes of legislation, such as taxation and spending measures that might affect the German states. It cannot block all classes of legislation. It also cannot “advise and consent” to the appointment of government officials, like the US Senate can still do.
<
p>
If the powers of the US senate were to be limited in a similar manner, I’d agree with returning the power of Senator appointment to the states legislatures. Otherwise, no.
Your conclusion that returning to the original method of electing senators through votes by state legislatures would eliminate money from the equation is flawed.
<
p>
Instead of funds being poured primarily into the candidates’ campaigns, money would be redirected into various interests at the state level. These interests would include state legislators and candidates for those offices (since they would actually vote for federal senators), state level PACs, state parties, organizations within political parties, etc. The money would be spent just as before: ads to persuade voters to call their legislators to vote for a particular candidate for Senate, lobbyists to lobby legislators to vote for particular candidates, etc. Of course, Senate candidates would still have their own campaigns in one form or another, which would likely raise funds from the same interests as before.
<
p>
National parties and organizations would funnel money into their state-level subordinates and affiliates. We would be awash with at least as much money as now, if not more.
I’m sorry, but I can’t understand how you or anyone else actually believes that Shays-Meehan/McCain-Feingold did anything to get the big money (or “legalized bribes” as you put it) out of political campaigns. Sure, it might have done away with soft money, but 527s more than made up the difference in the last cycle. Yes, the 527s aren’t technically controlled by the parties or the candidates, but big corporate/labor/individual interests were still pouring millions of dollars into campaigns in 2006. At least soft money was a bit more transparent.
<
p>
Also, in their desire to get their feel-good legislation through Congress, Marty (and the other sponsors) caved on a couple of major issues that actually might have done something positive. First, the legislation actually INCREASED the amount an individual can give to a candidate. Now rich guys (and gals) can give twice the amount of money they could before Shays-Meehan/McCain-Feingold was signed into law. Way to reduce the influence of wealthy donors Marty.
<
p>
Second, they failed to close one of the most egregious loopholes around — the reimbursement requirements for private jet usage. The fact that Members of Congress could travel on a charter jet for the price of a first class plane ticket was probably the biggest scam going. Most of those jets go for between $2,000-$6,000/hour of flight, meaning a one-way flight from LA to NYC might run anywhere between $10,000-$30,000, depending on the plane. I just checked, and a first class ticket runs from about $1,200 round trip. Quite the deal. This is now finally being addressed in some of the ethics/rules changes.
<
p>
Shays-Meehan/McCain-Feingold was a great PR opportunity and made some of the professional do-gooders/nags happy, but big money is still extremely prevalent in political campaigns and I doubt that will change anytime soon. Now Marty has jumped ship for a high-paying job at UMASS-Lowell for which his only qualifications seems to be the fact he served in Congress. He also seems to be working behind the scenes to anoint his successor, and isn’t even big enough to come out and personally endorse Niki Tsongas. And of course, he’s still hanging onto that $5 million just in case a better opportunity (aka Senate seat) opens up. Authentic Maverick? I don’t think so.
I am afraid that when historians write the history of post-Watergate U.S. campaign finance reform McCain/Feingold-Shays/Meehan will be described as a well-meaning and unconstitutional piece of full employment legislation for white shoe Washington, D.C. election lawyers. Only public financing of Congressional and state legislative campaigns will cleanse the body politic of the stain of the legalized bribery that continues to define our Congressional and state campaign finance systems.
<
p>
Marty’s well-publicized and vaunted piece of campaign finance reform legislation has not reduced, by any measurable standard, the prevalence soft-money from Congressional or Presidential elections. It merely lead crafty, well-compensated election lawyers to demonstrate to their individual, business and labor union clients how they could exploit loopholes in federal election and tax laws through the use of devices such as 527s, 510(c(4)s, 501(c(5)s, and 501(c)6s to funnel the same, “uncoordinated” millions of dollars to fund “issue ads” and “voter mobilization activities” that advance their favored politicans’ electoral ambitions. I would alert cheerleaders for McCain/Feingold-Shays/Meehan to the recently released report by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Campaign Finance Institute Campaign Finance Institute illustrating how 527s, for example, raised $117 million and spend $143 million during the federal congressional cycle of 2005-06, a moderate increase over the $114 million and $125 million respectively raised and spent of the midterm 2001-02 cycle. The report also details a substantial increase, during the 2005-06 election cycle in the utilization 501(c)tax mechanisms by labor unions, right-wing Christian convervative organizations, and business associations to pour millions of $$$ in soft money to sponsor “issue ads,” “advocacy campaigns” and “voter registration drives” to evade successfully the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan soft money limitations during the last Congressional election cycle.
<
p>
Finally, I would suggest that an “authentic maverick,” such as Lowell Weicker, would NOT continue to hoard $5 million in leftover campaign cash in his campaign kitty to preserve his electoral viability for a possible future run at a higher political office. Instead, an “authentic maverick” would donate this $5 million to several of the numerous nonprofit human service and educational nonprofit organizations serving the thousands of struggling and vulnerable 5th District constituents Marty has neglected while shuttling between appearances on Face the Nation, Meet the Press, This Week with George Stephonopolous, Fox News Sunday, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. I am prepared to be proven otherwise by a live televised announcement of Marty announcing a multimillion dollar donation to the Boys and Girl Clubs of Lowell or UMass Lowell itself. Nevertheless, if I were a betting man, I would put all my chips on that $5 million remaining in the Committee to Elect Marty Meehan account until January 2010, when Deval Patrick announces that he has finally achieved his lifetime ambition of becoming…the CEO at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, NSTAR, Ameriquest, Coca-Cola, or Texaco (choose one or all of the above), freeing Marty to announce he has reluctantly decided to leave his beloved UMass Lowell to fulfill his lifetime ambition to become Governor of the home state of the New England Patriots!