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….)
