Tuesday, April 22, 2014

To the Ramparts!

OK—this is not the news that you necessarily need to hear when the week is young, but my duty, Dear Reader, is clear. So here it is:
We’re fucked.
Sorry for the strong language, but it’s pretty clear: with the most recent decision of the Supreme Court, democracy just retreated to a minute dot in the rearview mirror.
So, allow me to present you the guy who has just gob-sacked us.
Yup, it’s John Roberts and why shouldn’t he be smiling? He has just handed the rich and powerful a major victory; in the process, he has ensured that anybody who isn’t rich and powerful is screwed.
Roberts was one of five guys who just decided—not only are corporations people (the work of Citizens United), but now there are absolutely no limits to how much spending overall in politics an individual can make.
I came to this issue via an article in The New York Times; here’s the sentence that triggered it:
She has been battered by $10 million in negative ads against her, most of it underwritten by the Koch brothers-backed group Americans for Prosperity.  
Who’s the “she?” Kay Hagen, a United States senator from North Carolina. And the Koch brothers? Two guys, neither of whom live in North Carolina (full disclosure: I have not checked this out…)—but even if they did, so? Why should a guy be able to give 10 million bucks to a political party, when an average guy like you or me is going to have a hard time to cough up a hundred bucks?
“Do you think Citizens United is going to be the Dred Scott of the 21st century?” I asked Mr. Fernández over the dinner table.
“Probably,” he said.
Well, if it’s not Citizens United, it’s McCutcheon versus Federal Election Commission. And the decision raised the question: did Roberts know what he was doing? Did he really think that giving money to political parties was “free speech?” Was he naïve?
Well, consider this line from his decision:
In a bit of irony, the Chief Justice reveals his deep understanding of how Washington works in his discussion of disclosure.  Right after pointing out how effective our current disclosure law is, the Chief adds the following:  “The existing aggregate limits may in fact encourage the movement of money away from entities subject to disclosure. Because individuals’ direct contributions are limited, would-be donors may turn to other avenues for political speech. See Citizens United. Individuals can, for example, contribute unlimited amounts to 501(c) organizations, which are not required to publicly disclose their donors.  . . . Such organizations spent some $300 million on independent expenditures in the 2012 election cycle.”   
In short, Roberts—who, after all, is a Harvard man—knew all too well what he was doing.
But who am I, except the guy at the last red table in the café? Right, so it was time to call the legal department, which in this case was Johnny, my brother.
“It’s total bullshit—pretty soon, there will be only person in the country with free speech, and that’ll be the richest guy in the country.”
“And did he know what he was doing?”
“Of course!”
“And is there any intellectual argument or rationale to justify the decision?”
Disgusted noise from the other end of the line.
So I tuned in to the video below—and so should you. And found out, by the way, that there are two states that actually have campaign financing that makes sense. Arizona, for example, has an excellent system, as described below:
Arizona enacted a campaign finance law that provides matching funds to candidates who accept public financing. The law, passed in 1998, gives an initial sum to candidates for state office who accept public financing and then provides additional matching funds based on the amounts spent by privately financed opponents and by independent groups. In 2008, some Republican candidates and a political action committee, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, filed suit arguing that to avoid triggering matching funds for their opponents, they had to limit their spending and, in essence, their freedom of speech.
What happened to the case? Well, here’s the next paragraph:
The U.S. District Court for District of Arizona found the matching-funds provision unconstitutional. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the case, saying it found "minimal" impact on freedom of speech.
And here’s the last word:
The Supreme Court reversed the lower court order in a decision by Chief Justice John Roberts. "Arizona's matching funds scheme substantially burdens political speech and is not sufficiently justified by a compelling interest to survive First Amendment scrutiny," the chief justice writing for the majority, noted that the holding does not contend that the First Amendment forbids all public financing.
In short, any chance that campaign finance is going to have is slim, indeed. Here’s one writer on the subject:
Indeed, one of the main cases relied on in McCutcheon was the Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett case from 2011, which struck down a perfectly good public campaign finance statute in the state of Arizona. Ya wanna try to pass one anything like that today? Roberts will laugh you out of the Supreme Court, and he's already now built enough of the chain of precedents to do it.   
What’s the solution?
Well, you can sign a petition for a constitutional amendment here.
I saw the video below advertised on the site of Americans for Campaign Reform (ACR), which supports two pieces of legislation. Here’s what they say:
Federal public funding legislation enjoys bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, with over 120 cosponsors. The bills would create a modern system of public funding of Presidential and Congressional elections based on small donations from citizens.
I mean, we all do want to take the money out of politics..,
…don’t we?
News flash: this story has a—potentially—happy ending, since John Paul Stevens, the retired US Supreme Court justice, has recently written a book, in which he proposes six constitutional amendments. Here’s what The New York Times said:
His own book has, in addition to the chapter on campaign finance, chapters on gun control, the death penalty, gerrymandering and aspects of state sovereignty. Each concludes with a proposed amendment.
And here’s what the 94-year ex-justice said about McCutcheon versus the FEC:
The plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman, had made contributions to 15 candidates in the 2012 election. He sued so he could give money to 12 more. None of the candidates in the second group were running in Alabama.
Mr. McCutcheon was not trying to participate in electing his own leaders, Justice Stevens said. “The opinion is all about a case where the issue was electing somebody else’s representatives,” he said.
Whew!
Thought I was the only one!




(Felt badly about ruining your day, so check out this dude on cello….)

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