As we hurtle toward the midterm elections, Democrats are confronting two contradictory sets of numbers. Their poll numbers are surging, and their fundraising numbers are woefully behind the GOP’s. Recent filings showed that the Democratic National Committee had approximately $16 million cash on hand and almost $18 million in debt, while the Republican National Committee had $130 million and no debt.
A monetary advantage does not always translate into an electoral win. But money in politics matters deeply. If it didn’t, candidates, political parties and outside groups would stop raising and spending it.
A monetary advantage does not always translate into an electoral win. But money in politics matters deeply.
Now voters in Montana may soon try to stem that tide of money in their state. A ballot initiative would allow Montana voters to decide whether to bar corporations from spending money in elections. Supporters of the initiative argue that corporations are created by state statutes, and states can decline to give their own creations the ability to spend money in elections.
Except there is a huge problem with this ballot initiative, and it’s called the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has long held that money given and spent in elections is the equivalent of speech, and therefore that restrictions on giving and spending in campaigns are subject to First Amendment review. And then of course in 2010 the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Citizens United: A thin majority of the court concluded that when it comes to spending on campaigns, the identity of the speaker (aka spender) does not matter, and corporations should be treated the same way as individuals.
The court also concluded that when corporations spend independently of candidates, that money, whether it be $10,000 or $10,000,000, cannot be corrupting as a matter of law. The court came to this conclusion by narrowing the definition of corruption to only quid pro quo corruption. (Previously it had understood that corporate spending could give rise to a broader type of corruption, which amounts to a distortion of our political discourse.) Put another way, when corporations can spend unlimited sums to influence our elections, the court formerly held that spending could drown out many other spenders, and speakers, who happened to be actual people, as opposed to state-created entities.
Montana is attempting a clever solution to what many agree is a real problem: the deluge of money in politics. Money doesn’t just potentially sway elections; campaign finance reformers argue that it can also have a pernicious effect on our political and electoral system. Money can give rise to corruption or the appearance of it, undue influence by large donors, preferential access to large donors and lawmakers who spend their time dialing for dollars instead of representing us. Simply put, money opens the door to donors getting, or looking like they’re getting, a seat at the table, while the rest of the electorate isn’t even in the building.
If you think money in politics poses an existential threat to our political system, there’s an easier and more obvious solution.
But even if the Montana initiative succeeds at the ballot box, it is doomed to fail in court. If and until the court reverses course and concludes that money is money, not speech, or that we should treat spending by a corporation as different from that of a human, proposed measures like Montana’s are effectively DOA.
Of course, if you think money in politics poses an existential threat to our political system, there’s an easier and more obvious solution than attempting to pass a ballot initiative or change the Supreme Court’s mind. Members of the electorate can start giving paid advertisements less weight when it comes to our electoral decisions. In an age of seemingly ceaseless information, there’s little reason that paid ads on TV, radio, magazines or websites should hold such an outsize sway over us and our votes. The solution to the problem of “big money” is in reach, but likely not at the ballot box.Voters do not even need to shut off their TVs, radios or computers during the wave of campaign ads that will hit us during campaign season. Assuming there is proper disclosure as to the identity of the funder of those ads, voters can simply decide for themselves how much credence to give to any paid ad. There is a reason federal law requires that paid spokespeople identify themselves as such. The idea is that viewers may evaluate a pitch to buy a product or even a prescription drug differently if they know the person making that pitch was paid to do so. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that voters should ignore paid ads. It means they should be on alert for who is sponsoring their campaign ads, and decide for themselves whether that person or group is credible.
We are the ones who can control whether the GOP’s huge fundraising advantage this election cycle will translate into electoral success. This isn’t easy, and it won’t happen overnight. Again, candidates, committees and outside groups raise and spend enormous sums because they know that money spent on campaign advertising works. But that is only true because we let it be so.
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