In an utterly brilliantly written and poignant commentary in the Atlantic, Harvard’s own Lawrence Lessig lays out an incredibly compelling argument in favor of getting money out of Democratic politics (both small and big ‘D’).
The money quotes:
So how do we Democrats ever win anything that we really care about, from climate-change legislation, to real financial reform, to health care designed to actually heal people rather than subsidize drug companies or protect insurance companies? These core Democratic objectives are off the table so long as big money funds campaigns. And any Democrat who tells you otherwise either thinks that you’re a fool or is a fool himself.
You don’t get to heaven by sleeping with the devil. And you don’t get to govern by handing the keys to the republic over to interests who have no actual interest in governing. We need a party that stands for ideas. And first among those ideas must be to banish big money from center stage. A credible and unbendable commitment to changing the way campaigns are funded would not only inspire millions to join the party. It would also, and more importantly, make governing possible again.
Elections are close battles — either the general or, where one philosophy dominates the other demographically, the primary. To win, you’ve got to squeeze out every opportunity, every advantage.
This means that the Democrats who agree with Professor Lessig must either (a) self-fund, (b) live up to his ideals and likely find themselves no longer legislators, or (c) believe in his ideas while simultaneously dialing for dollars. Doesn’t mean that Lessig’s observation is wrong, or that reducing big money’s role in politics can’t be done.
says what came into my mind better than I would have said it.
… as Professor Lessig and I have personally discussed this very issue.
OK, two questions.
1: it’s all very well to talk about “changing the way campaigns are funded,” but one wants to have at least some sense of where said change would lead us. Nothing along those lines is apparent from Lessig’s Atlantic piece. I know he’s published some ideas elsewhere on where he’d like to go, most of which strike me as pie-in-the-sky. It’s all very well to aim high, but it does seem desirable to maintain at least some sense of what is remotely possible in today’s world.
2: “inspire millions to join the party” – really? Does Lessig have any evidence for that rather bold claim? Certainly, none is disclosed in the Atlantic piece.
@stomv:
I think he is making the point that your argument has been advanced for nearly 25 years and we have seen little movement on the economic issues Democrats are supposed to care about. Progressives view ACA as a vital first step while the party establishment views it as a done deal that we won’t revist. That dichotomy continues with Wall Street reform, gun control, filibuster reform, protecting entitlements, defending public education, and trade policy. What the vast majority of Americans, registered Dems and the grassroots want is anathema to the corporate friendly makeover that Clinton engineered and Obama has cemented. And you won’t change that reality if you continue to elect candidates that enable it.
I will concede at the presidential level we can’t hold our candidates to Lessig’s standards and expect them to win. But certainly at the local, state and congressional level we can. Russ Feingold won two consecutive Senate terms abiding by strict rules, the people’s pledge worked, Warreb is powered by small donors largely in state. Having labor turn against Citizens instead of joining corporate lobbyists as friends of the court would also be a good start. Working America and other initiatives can get good government and blue collar progressives on the same page. As the Federal Marriage Amendment animated the religious right in 2004, even if it failed, a true state by state push for an amendment overturning Citizens United and limiting corporate personhood could galvanize the left.
@David
1) I think Lessig has spelled out alternatives elsewhere and the goal here was to make a clarion call for complacent Democrats to wake up and demand better. He has backed the Arizona matching funds initiative with Charles Fried that could pass SCOTUS muster, he backs amendments limiting corporate personhood, and he has backed full disclosure of donors. These reforms are good starts, others like you can’t donate to incumbents in charge of regulating your industry are also good starts. I’d agree that some are more pie in the sky than others, and pragmatism should govern this movement.
2) This is wishful thinking, but the millions of young people backing the Paul’s and Gary Johnson’s of the world are attracted to purity and purpose more than libertarianism and their anger against the government could be galvanized to support these reforms. Similarly those in the green movements, those that backed Rocky Anderson, and the massive number of youths who don’t show up in non-Presidential years, and unenrolled voters. All could be future Democrats, none are guaranteed, but if we allow this system to continue none will join and many members may become disenchanted.
I think there is very little chance of getting the Ron Paul/Gary Johnson crowd to sign on to the kind of campaign finance reform that Lessig wants. Basically, Lessig wants to say that individuals can’t donate a lot of money to candidates, and that government should spend a lot of taxpayer money on campaigns instead. That both restricts the freedom of those individuals who want to donate and requires increased government spending, and therefore, it seems contrary to what libertarians generally like. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but it strikes me as unlikely.
I would totally agree with your initial critique that this number was speculative and lacking in empirical evidence, and I will concede my conjecture was as well. But there is greater diversity amongst those supporters than we might expect. For one Gary Johnson was open to the Arizona proposal, as was libertarian leaning law prof Charles Fried (FWIW my libertarian-conservative co host agreed with Fried when we had him
On our radio show). A good number of my friends in Cambridge who backed Paul in the primary and Johnson in the general also backed Warren over Brown since they are just as fearful of corporate power. But yes the left/libertarian alliance Kos and Andrew Sullivan hoped for will not come to pass as much as we expect, but some of these voters who are soft libertarians can be picked off.
he’s dreaming. Specifically, he neglects the history and economic system that produced the political system we have now. Jacob Hacker outlines the problem in Winner Take All Politics.
It all starts in the 1970s when business, which wasn’t very coordinated, responded to the consumer movement and organized the Chamber of Commerce, created the Business Round Table, and spawned a number of smaller organizations to advance a radical business agenda that outspends every other lobby.
The idea that the Democrats can go big on campaign finance reform and voters will flock to them is pixie dust. Pure pixie dust. Democrats would have to unilaterally disarm themselves financially to have any credibility on the issue.
It’s not just politics, but our entire society, that has been corrupted by money. I don’t believe politics can rise above the contamination.
What’s the rational behind supporting Democratic candidates them? We will put a little bit of sugar in the austerity “medicine” nobody is asking for? The middle class might occasionally expand when the rare bubble happens we can take credit for? Sorry folks, the system is broken and it has to be fixed.
and what you said in your earlier comment is true. The “argument has been advanced for nearly 25 years and we have seen little movement on the economic issues Democrats are supposed to care about.” But there’s a legitimate concern that, if we don’t raise money to compete, we will lose and any kind of reform – or even holding the line – will be even more unattainable.
In the meantime, the rationale behind supporting Democratic candidates, frustrating as it may be, is that things will be a million times worse with the other guys.
As you say, the fundraising problem is more easily avoided in local and state races, but we have to be engaged and organized. As I’ve pointed out ad nauseam, our 80%+ Democratic legislature isn’t getting us the policy we want and need either. Part of the reason is they always seem to hear more squawking from the other side. We have to make ourselves heard better, and start doing a better job winning over more people to our side on some of these issues.
Something in society has to change enough that a progressive agenda can be implemented. And yes, things do change. Things changed to allow the .1% to redistribute wealth to them; things can change again.
Organizations are the key to power in a democracy. It is groups that inform and mobilize voters. Business is extremely well-organized right now, and they dramatically outspend us. There is no organization at the moment that can match them. But changes are coming that give cause for hope. Labor is growing again, not necessarily as unions with collective bargaining, but as groups of workers organizing to protest their conditions. Unions are watching unaffiliated workers who are taking action. Those workers may lead the way.
The changing face of the population across the country and in the Southern states. Ethnic minorities will give Democrats the potential for majorities in those states. Things are changing.
Why vote for a Democrat? Because Democrats are farther to the left, and though corrupted by our corrupt system, we aren’t pushing for radical changes to make things even worse. Chuck Schumer is, by Hacker’s account, the most compromised Democrat. But we now have Elizabeth Warren. It would be nice if there were a switch out there we could flip to change the direction of our country, but I don’t think there’s any issue that can do that.
So what do we do? We do the best we can to push forward. We play the game as best we can. We organize and we work to make our organizations responsive to our demands. This is what we’ve always done. The New Deal wouldn’t have been possible without the Depression. Major events happen because there is a confluence of the changing of minds and changes in society.
It may not be a Romantic notion, but we keep doing what we’re doing: electing the best people we can and promoting our progressive ideas. And we work on doing these things better. For me, that’s working for campaigns, working for my union, being a selectman, learning more, and, yes, blogging at BMG.
We’re on the verge. I see our current time as being, in many ways, like the 1970s. The Democratic Party, riding high in 1964, was severely damaged by the events of 1968, and Nixon was elected President. Likewise, the GOP, seemingly riding high in 2004, was damaged by the 2007-2008 meltdown, and Obama was elected President.
In the 1970s Watergate and its fallout led to a temporary resurgence of the Democrats, but it didn’t last. The late 70s brought the anti-tax backlash and Reagan won in 1980. The Tea Party moment, in my view, is similar. Just a delay on the road to realignment, because today’s GOP offers nothing of use for most voters.
The wild card is that, in the 70s, big money organized behind the conservative realignment. Today most big money is organized against us. That makes it all the more important that we continue to work, to talk with those around us, to win people over. The American people won’t stand for this forever. And perhaps, in 2016 or 2020, we can begin the true progressive renaissance.
the happy talk about how we keep winning elections so therefore Citizens United et al. must not be such bad things.
When we win we inherit the other side’s frames and constraints, and generally do not challenge them.
Lessig gives us the why. It’s not that the majority of registered Democrats or even the majority of Americans force those frames on us, they clearly don’t since solid majorities favor the progressive position on a host of social and yes even economic ones. It’s that the corporate media has defined the center as “socially liberal pro big business”, anything else is “extreme” whether its Krugman or social conservatives. Mill would argue that the media has a responsibility to be “objective” in the sense that it would filter out anything that is empirically false.
The progressives in power know this is false. Talk to real Hyde parkers and to a man they say “I no longer recognize the man i elected as state Senator”. Obama knows the policies he is pursuing are wrong but his hands are tied since the Penny Pritzkers of the world get to dictate his agenda since they write the checks. Not only are our economic marketplaces broken but so is the marketplace of ideas, which is exactly why BMG is needed. I would argue we should give to specific candidates we respect that have the guts to counter this system, but the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC can kiss my ass. They will be too busy kissing Wall Streets to realize it too.
Isn’t an advantage to not being able to run again that you don’t need no stinkin’ checks? The President should at this point be able to tell the fat cats to take a hike.
He is still the star fundraiser for the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC and held two for the latter in Chicago on Wednesday, in addition to choking up traffic it also included the Vice President, Mayor Emmanuek and other Chi/IL bigwigs, and Minority Leader Pelosi. All my major local officials, the first and second in command of my armed forces, and the head of my party in Congress all spending the bulk of their day traveling to Chicago to raise money from fat cats for the next cycle. As Lessig points out, this is what they do all the time instead of governing. Since the sequester doesn’t affect them, why should they change the status quo?
This dynamic is why I am so opposed to the new reincarnation of “Obama For America” into “Organizing For America”. Its existence, and the arguments defending it, should be a very loud alarm sounding an “Emergency stall alert” to every individual who cares about sustaining an independent government controlled by the people, rather than the very wealthy.
At the “Founder’s Summit” for OFA, Barack Obama himself compared serving as President to attending college (5:07-5:39)
In essence, a two-term sitting president is stating that holding the longest term in the highest office of the most powerful nation in human history is mere preparation for the “real” work. Mr. Obama is admitting that the office itself no longer has real power.
Mr. Obama says that he, as President, has “graduated” — and the room (filled with the press and the very wealthy) laughs at his funny joke. I’m not laughing.
We have sold the full force, power, and leverage of the US government to narrow private interests — a handful of individuals — who now actually determine what does and does not happen to each and every one of us.
It has sounded to me like OFA is finally doing during the second term what I and I think others hoped for in the first term – driving the President’s agenda by engaging his base to pressure Congress.
I see no indication that OFA intends to disband in January of 2017. Instead, I see an organization preparing itself for a long life.
I hope we have not reached the point where raising boatloads of cash is synonymous with “engaging his base” — the two concepts are very different. In the clip cited above, Mr. Obama was speaking to a very select group of people. The audience, in fact, was not very different from the audience of Mr. Romney’s infamous 47% remark (other than in political affiliation).
I think it shocking that the IRS rubber-stamped the conversion of a partisan campaign war chest into a 501-c-4. It is a receipt for spending federally donated money at the state and local level and makes a mockery of ‘limits’ under campaign finance laws.
And yes, Tom, I would criticize a GOP President that did the same thing.
We need to have HUMAN ONLY political donation. No PAC’s, no unions, no party X-NCC, no corporations, no exceptions. Just individual humans, exercising their speech rights one by one.
I absolutely believe it is the role of parties to get candidates elected on their side so I say long live the DNC, RNC, and their related Hill Committees. However, I think we can and should apply the individual-only rule to those who donate TO those committees.
I have no problem with advice, counsel, insider guidance, etc. But why should the party organizations be able to give cash?
If you allow ANY group, then you have to allow EVERY group – including those you don’t like.
Individual donation is the only way to reform the system.
We did see too much fundraising on OFA’s part in the first term, but in the second term I have seen more of the “Call your Congressman and ask him to support…” messages, which is what I was refering to.
I don’t think that it “all comes down to money.” I think it all comes down to the pernicious doctrine of money as speech and corporations as persons. And no campaign finance reform will have any teeth, whatsover, until those doctrines are shot dead, buried, stomped upon and remembered no more. I agree with the sentiment “you can’t get to heaven by sleeping with the devil” but in this case, to use an old ‘WestWing’ reference, you’re not sleeping with the devil, you’re sleeping with the guy who runs into 7-eleven to get the devil a pack of smokes. The real devil here, and the real impediment to good governance is the law, which entirely opposed to reason and logic says that money is speech and corporations are people. To use a literary reference this time, the law is a ass.
Here’s what I’d like to see happen… and may God forgive me for wishing it… Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas drop dead tomorrow and on Monday Barack Obama appoints Hillary Clinton and Deval Patrick in their stead. I think the added benefit of merely suggesting Hillary Clinton for the bench would be to send over two thirds of the House Republicans into catalepsis…. solving an entirely different problem.
@Porcupine
I miss you, post more often! Also this suggestion would solve a lot of problems without failing the post-Citizens standard of scrutiny. I’d match that reform with a bill capping individual donations, but our proposal combined with a disclosure law (campaigns have to say which individual paid for the ad and name names) would do a lot of good.
@Petr
I disagree with the tongue in cheek SCOTUS scenario, I suspect we just need the states to experiment with solutions while also getting enough of them to overturn citizens