The Biggest Threat to Democracy is in Plain Sight
“The corruption that hides in plain sight is the real threat to our democracy…Under current law, campaign contributions are illegal if there is an explicit quid pro quo, and legal if there isn’t. But legal campaign contributions can be as bad as bribes in creating obligations…The structure of private campaign finance has essentially pre-corrupted our politicians, so that they can’t even recognize explicit bribery because it feels the same as what they do every day.” — Law Professor Zephyr Teachout at Fordham University.
Candidates feel that their main responsibility is to their donors, not their ordinary constituents. The donors tend to decide who wins and loses elections; the person who raises the most money tends to win. In 2020, 93.38% of House members that raised the most money won, while 82.35% of senators that raised the most money won.
Congress spends 30% to 70% of their time fundraising for re-election; the majority of their donations come from major corporations.
The system incentivizes politicians to do what their donors want in order to ensure that they continue to receive donations and outside funding.
There are limits to how much individuals and corporations can donate directly to candidates; however, there are no limits to the amount of money they can donate to Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs). Super PACs are organizations that do campaigning but are not allowed to coordinate with any candidate or party.
There is significant evidence that members of Congress do what their donors want, rather than the average American. There is no correlation between what the average American wants and what policies Congress adopts. While there is a high correlation between what special interest groups and affluent Americans want and what Congress adopts.
Less than 1% of Americans donate more than $200 to political campaigns, while no more than 0.05% give the maximum amount.
Lobbyists, the people donors hire to influence politicians, sometimes even directly write the laws for Congress. They can easily slip in tax loopholes for the rich and other advantages.
“Tragically, as I say this advisedly, we are well on our way to seeing our great country move toward an oligarchic form of government — where virtually all economic and political power rest with a handful of very wealthy families.” — Senator Bernie Sanders.
Political scientists have done research and many agree with Senator Bernie Sanders — the United States can be thought of as an oligarchy. An oligarchy is a system of government in which a small group of people have most of the power. In the United States, that small group of people is a very wealthy subset of Americans — the 0.05%.
An abundance of scholars say that we need to get money out of politics in order to fix our corrupt campaign finance system.
“We should reject the private financing of campaigns as the only model. We need to provide enough public funding for campaigns so that anyone with a broad base of support can run for office, and respond effectively to attacks, without becoming dependent on private patrons. Running for office shouldn’t be a job defined by permanent begging at the feet of the wealthiest donors in the country…Those two reforms would be transformational. We will never eradicate every shady deal, but we can make politics more about serving the public and less like legalized bribery. There’s one last thing we should do: ban corporate spending and limit total campaign spending.” — Law Professor Zephyr Teachout at Fordham University.
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