Politics Made in the U.S.A.: Corruption and the Appearance of Corruption

During the hubbub last week over the Tea Party engineered government shutdown and flirtation with default it was easy to miss an important opinion piece written by Thomas Edsall, "The Political-Monetary Complex."

Edsall, who, as this blog has said before, is providing one of the best, sustained critiques of our national politics from his perch within the New York Times, takes a look at the limit on individual campaign contributions upheld by the 1976 Buckley decision in the light of the Supreme Court's decision to hear McCutcheon v Federal Election Commission. As Edsall explains,

Shaun McCutcheon, the chief executive officer of Coalmont Electrical Development, is contesting federal laws that restrict the total or “aggregate” amount an individual can donate to federal candidates and political parties, on the grounds that this restriction unconstitutionally limits his free speech rights. (There are at present no aggregate limits on the total amount that PACS and political party committees can contribute to candidates for federal office; McCutcheon does not engage this issue.)

The underlying issue in Buckley as it is in McCutcheon is corruption and the appearance of corruption:

In its landmark 1976 decision Buckley v.Valeo, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of laws aimed at “the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates’ positions and on their actions if elected to office.”

To this end, Edsall takes a quick peek, a snapshot, of large financial contributions in our current political system. The last few paragraphs of his commentary really jump out. After listing the tens of millions of dollars raised by Boehner, McConnell and Reid in their leadership positions in the House and Senate, Edsall identifies who it is making these large contributions. It is not the 1%, but the 0.1%:

Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at Sunlight, found that under the current system, “an elite group of 31,385 individual political donors representing one tenth of one percent of the population of the United States” accounted for 28% of the total funding the in 2012 election.” In other words, more than a quarter of the money spent on political campaigns in 2012 came from 0.1 percent of the American population. 

These elite donors, Drutman writes, “have little in common with average Americans. They hail predominantly from big cities, such as New York and Washington. They work for blue-chip corporations, such as Goldman Sachs and Microsoft. One in five works in the finance, insurance and real estate sector. One in 10 works in law or lobbying. The median contribution from this group of elite donors is $26,584. That’s a little more than half the median family income in the United States.” 

The problem confronting campaign finance reformers is that they are seeking to democratize an inherently undemocratic system of campaign finance. Barring public financing — which is adamantly opposed by Republicans and has only lukewarm public support — the American system for financing political campaigns is essentially a tool for those with money to decisively influence policy outcomes.

Edsall concludes:

Corruption and the appearance of corruption are here to stay. The difference now is that the squalid character of the system has become institutionalized. It’s so deeply integrated into the routine of Congress that, McCutcheon notwithstanding, the American political-monetary complex provokes cynicism and apathy rather than outrage, protest or indignation. It is also kindling for fiery populists on both the left and the right.

I think Edsall is right about the "lukewarm public support" for public financing. People think, "Why do I want to contribute to a totally corrupt and broken system?" without taking the long view that without public financing there is no way to counteract the influence of large contributors like McCutcheon.

But where Edsall sounds suspicious of the "fiery populists on both the left and right" I see them as an opportunity to democratically and dialectically resolve some of the contradictions in our political life.

The government shutdown is a good example; it illustrates that the fire-eating Tea Party Republicans are a minority with no hope of governing. They are now facing a war of extermination against the very deep-pocketed donors who helped bring them to life in the first place.