The USA Today has a table that shows how much money all the freshman representatives have raised so far this year. It breaks it down between individual donations and PAC contributions. It’s amazing how strong the correlation is between good voting and getting the majority of your donations from individuals.
Almost without exception, every representative that has raised more in PAC money than in individual donations, is a Blue Dog or New Dem or a Republican.
The most progressive voices have the largest individual donor ratio advantage. In the past, progressives wound up with no money if they didn’t get PAC money. As you can see from the chart, that is no longer the case.
Think what our elections might look like if we had a very limited campaign season; media outlets donated air time as part of the price of doing business; all candidates had the same (small) “war chest” provided from the tax rolls; NO PAC or Corporate or Individual contributions. While we are at it, NO lobbies.
How about this alternative reality: imagine what elections would look like if there were no limits on campaign spending whatsoever, but every penny that was raised or spent had to be fully disclosed within 30 days. If John Conyers can get $1 million from the UAW then more power to him, and the people of Detroit – who largely work for the UAW – wouldn’t blink an eye. But if Conyers got $1 million from Kia then he could expect to be summarily booted from office. I am loathe to quote or in anyway lend support to Hillary but she did get this one point right (broken clock, twice a day and all that) – all lobbyists (and by extension, PACs) aren’t bad. The interests of the lobbyists and the interests of the constituents ought to by in-sync when it comes to our representatives, and if there’s a discrepancy then the voters ought to let their voices be known. The problem isn’t money in politics – America spends more money on Halloween candy each year than it spends on presidential elections every four years – the problem is full disclosure and getting the public to pay attention to that which is disclosed.
If the public abdicates its responsibility to govern itself then moneyed-interests will gladly fill the void, because nature abhors a vacuum…
If the public abdicates its responsibility to govern itself then moneyed-interests will gladly fill the void, because nature abhors a vacuum…
Then our system is irrevocably broken, because most people want to elect leaders to do the governing FOR them because they don’t have the time, energy or know-how to do it themselves.
This is part of the reason why when times are good, people forget about government and radicals can rise up and take over. When times are bad, people start paying attention again and the bad actors get the boot. When government is working, and by extension the country is working, people worry about the things that are most important to them (their families mostly, but also their jobs and their leisure time).
That’s a fact of life. And if our system doesn’t acknowledge and account for that then it is a broken system.
Think of an automobile – what happens if the driver takes his hands off of the sttering wheel and stops paying attention to the road? The ensuing carnage would not be due to a faulty system (automobile) but due to the negligence of the operator. The same is true of the citizens of the United States of America when it comes to the proper operation of our system of government – the system isn’t broken, we simply aren’t using it properly.