This shouldn’t be legal and, as you’ll see, it barely was legal:
Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has cut a $30 million check to the House GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, a massive cash infusion that top Republicans hope will alter the party’s electoral outlook six months before Election Day.
The long-sought donation was sealed last week when, according to two senior Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan flew to Las Vegas to meet with the billionaire at his Venetian Hotel. Also at the meeting with Adelson was his wife, Miriam; Norm Coleman, the former Minnesota senator who chairs the Republican Jewish Coalition; Corry Bliss, who oversees the super PAC; and Jake Kastan, Ryan’s No. 2 political aide. They laid out a case to Adelson about how crucial it is to protect the House.
As a federally elected official, Ryan is not permitted to solicit seven-figure political donations. When Ryan (R-Wis.) left the room, Coleman made the ask and secured the $30 million contribution.
We have hard limits on how much money individuals can donate to candidates and there’s a reason for that. We don’t want some citizens to be more equal than others, and rich people already have many options for how they can wield undo influence in the corridors of power.
It makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws when a billionaire can throw 30 million dollars into our midterm elections on the side of one party. The fact that Speaker Paul Ryan had to step out of the room when the pitch was made demonstrates that there was something wrong with the transaction. Whether Ryan was in the room or listening outside the door should not define what is ethical and what is not.
The article makes clear that the GOP had long anticipated and was desperate to receive this infusion of cash from Adelson, and that is problematic because Adelson’s primary interest in politics is related to two things: his international casino empire and American foreign policy toward Israel.
He operates casinos in Singapore and Macau, which is as shady and dubious as it sounds:
Venetian Macao and Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands speak for themselves as extraordinary creations, reflecting favorably on their creator. Yet, it also seems utterly absurd that a guy in his 80s who can’t speak a word of Chinese and comes from Boston – further from Macau than any major city on earth except Buenos Aires – with a personality at least that far from Asian ideals such as humility and harmony, nevertheless remains the most powerful person in Asian gaming. Adelson’s status highlights his unique combination of vision and guts.
When Macau invited proposals for three casino licenses in November 2001, there were plenty of reasons to steer clear or, at the very least, hedge your bets. The local gaming business was populated by underworld figures known for gunfights on downtown streets in broad daylight. Macau’s gaming oversight wasn’t up to global standards, posing a threat to casino license holders in more advanced jurisdictions like Nevada and New Jersey, where MGM got into hot water over its Macau partner. Two years earlier, Portugal had handed Macau back to China, and, Beijing’s influence raised questions about the business climate for foreign investors.
As for Israel, there is nothing wrong with an American citizen having a concern about its security and future, but there does come a point where a private citizen can have too much influence over how American foreign policy is conducted. In 2012, Sheldon Adelson single-handedly bankrolled the candidacy of Newt Gingrich. When asked about this by Ted Koppel, Gingrich’s answer was succinct:
Koppel: There has to be a so-what at the end of it. So– if you win what does Adelson get out of it?
Gingrich. He knows I’m very pro Israel. That’s the central value of his life. I mean, he’s very worried that Israel is going to not survive.
It’s not going too far to argue that Adelson’s money distorted the way the 2012 Republican primaries unfolded. Without Adelson’s cash, Gingrich simply couldn’t have financed his travel let alone his advertising. He would have dropped out much earlier. In the end, he was the last candidate to withdraw from the race, on May 2nd. In 2016, Adelson adopted Marco Rubio as his pet candidate.
Adelson’s support of Israel isn’t generic. He supports the right-wing in their politics, too. And you can see how central Iran is to his thinking from comments he made back in 2013. The Times of Israel reported on it at the time:
American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson said the United States should detonate a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert to display toughness, though without hurting a soul, before the next stage of negotiations with Tehran. It should then threaten that the next bomb would fall on Tehran, he said.
“What are we going to negotiate about?” Adelson told a crowd at New York’s Yeshiva University on Tuesday night.
Right now, I don’t want to debate the merits of the Iran nuclear deal. Maybe you support it, or maybe you think it was the worst deal ever negotiated. What I want you to think about is something else. When a political party becomes dependent on a single billionaire and desperate for his support and funding, and that billionaire has one issue that is, as Gingrich put it, “the central value of his life,” then that political party is going to be compelled to address that issue in the way the billionaire dictates.
In this case, it isn’t simply a desire that America remain a staunch ally of Israel and guarantor of their security. In this case, it’s a desire that America follow along with the right-wing politicians in Israel in their extreme hardline and warlike stance toward the Iranian government. Blowing up the nuclear deal is part of the deal, and it doesn’t matter if this causes a rift in the Trans-Atlantic alliance or leads to war or has any other negative or catastrophic consequences. Adelson wants the deal destroyed. The Republicans are desperate for his money. Therefore, they wind up losing the freedom to choose what policy to support.
Israel is a touchy issue, so maybe it’s best to think about a hypothetical case for any other country. We have laws about foreign governments donating or participating in our elections because we want to make sure that our politicians will act in the best interests of our own country before they start doing the bidding of other counties. But when we allow one citizen, like Sheldon Adelson, to basically own a political party, it has the same effect as if his money was coming from abroad. It’s true that Adelson is an American citizen, but we could have an Iranian-American or Chinese-American or Turkish-American who distorts our foreign policy in the same way.
The problem isn’t the country or the individual involved. The problem is the disproportionate power one citizen has to bend American foreign policy to his liking. This is also a problem on domestic issues, like gaming regulations. Michael Bloomberg throws a serious amount of money around to support candidates who will push for gun control. He, too, has too much influence. According to Bloomberg News, Tom Steyer spent more in disclosed donations than the Koch Brothers, Robert Mercer or Adelson during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles. In 2014, his $75 million was more than the next three biggest donors combined. It’s not a matter of whether someone is wrong or right. Billionaires shouldn’t be able to bankroll a major political party’s midterm elections, or single-handedly keep a candidate in a presidential race who otherwise would not have the funding to pay for their lunch. These huge donations to the political parties and the Super PACs make a mockery of our own small donations and the idea that we’re all equal citizens.
We need to figure out a way to rein in this type of influence.
Billionaires have too much money. No one needs that much, or should have that much.
I don’t agree with the premise of the article. Having money isn’t inherently evil. Not caring about others, and especially working to undermine their well being to further line one’s own pockets, is.
I have no problem with Elon Musk, a billionaire who uses his money to fund programs he believes will better the world. I do think people shouldn’t be pigs and fly around on private jets that spew carbon in completely unsustainable ways.
I see money not as inherently evil, but rather a tool with which people can do extraordinary good or bad. They can also sit on it and be useless. That’s probably what most rich people are. Perhaps most people period.
I both agree and disagree. Yes, money isn’t inherently evil but a huge amount of it is able to unduly influence event and policy outcomes in democracies. I would postulate that too much money floating around at will in a democracy also will inevitably weaken it and will probably bring about its premature demise. If we don’t figure ways to rein it in, our democracy will soon become nothing but a token one.
The real question is how to do that, given that virtually ALL of the GOP, certainly at the federal level if not also at the state level, are totally bought and paid for. The ONLY time they will speak out for the people is when they’ve conceded defeat and won’t run for re-election. Doesn’t help the rest of us and serves only as a sop for their consciences.
It’s inherently evil if it comes from or is facilitated by sweetheart provisions in the tax code.
I don’t think billionaires should be able to exist. If you’re a billionaire, I have a real hard time believing you got there without behavior that’s either illegal, or should be made illegal.
But we are even past that. People are now so rich that a few points in their own stock price increases their wealth by several billion dollars. That is not a healthy system.
The premise of Smith’s piece is: having too much money is immoral. There’s nothing in there about money being evil. Feel free to disagree with that argument, of course.
But the point of my short post was to imply some questions: if wealth were more evenly distributed here–if, for example, the tax rate for the obscenely wealthy approached that of the not-so-distant past–how would the cultural/social/political landscape look? If you couldn’t have billionaires, and if–presumably–more people felt more secure in their futures, with social institutions established to offer more support, then would there be less incentive for people to accumulate ridiculous volumes of money, and if so, since money is now legally speech, perhaps salutary implications for a threatened democracy, among other things?
Of course that is all wildly simplistic and reductive–the drive to amass huge material wealth requires a certain psychology, social (dis)incentives notwithstanding–but I think these kinds of questions are worth introducing into the discourse.
(As it happens, I think the case of Elon Musk eloquently supports Smith’s argument, but I suppose that’s a discussion to be pursued privately.)
. . . Have a problem with Elon Musk, that is.
In fact, at least two. Big ones.
There should be a wealth tax. Any wealth over 500 million dollars should be taxed so that if it isn’t given away, it will be drained away.
There is no reason why one person born on this planet should have that much access to the resources of the planet, which is all that money really is in reality, outside of abstract numbers in bank accounts.
Or: would it be acceptable if someone has all of the money/power over the planet’s resources? If the answer is no, then clearly you believe there is a hard limit at some point for wealth.
One of my primary frustrations with my friends on the left is their shortsightedness with regard to issues like the Supreme Court. Had they held their noses and pulled the handle for Clinton we’d have our first liberal court in more than 50 years. Then things like meaningful campaign finance reform would become a real possibility. For now it’s a pipe dream.
What!!!???
You think that the Clintons…and the Obamas and the rest of the mainstream Dems… don’t play the same damned game? That so-called “liberal” justices aren’t part and parcel of the exact same rotten system?
Power sustains itself by any means necessary. Any Supreme Court candidates who even smelled like they might rock the trillion dollar DC inside boat would never even be nominated, let alone confirmed.
Get real.
Look at what happened to Kucinich.
A couple of times.
He advocated sweeping reforms…and meant what he said.
Ditto Bernie Sanders.
The mainstream Dems take those sorts of ideas and make slogans out of them, but they have no intention of doing any more than is absolutely necessary to get elected.
Look at what happened to Bernie Sanders during the recent primaries. He posed a real danger to this “pay for play” status quo. HRC represents that status quo. Ergo, Sanders had to go down.
DC business as usual.
In both parties.
“Wink wink, nudge nudge”…from the TweedleDem/TweedleDeplorable twins.
Sad.
And y’all continue to fall for it.
Even sadder.
AG
As Incredible as it may seem, the voting records of Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor are not identical! Even though they are part and parcel of the exact same rotten system!
Good lord you’re a fucking moron.
You’re smearing Notorious RBG? For shame!
The loss of the Supreme Court (and Roe) was openly pooh-poohed as a toothless threat that was always deployed by sheeple-Dems.
These dissenters will hopefully enjoy the anticipated announcement of Kennedy’s retirement and the placement of the 5th Alito on the Court. The reinforced Roberts’ Repubs will make the Court’s Four Horsemen of the 1930s look like a childen’s pony ride.
Der Trumper may very well get 4 supreme court justices by 2020. That’ll be 7-2 for those who are counting….and that, my friends, is the end of the game.
I’m curious. Did you know that even had those 70,000 votes switched, or what ever, that the GOP would have still controlled the Senate? How did you intend on getting Garland confirmed in that case? Because Yertle the Turtle wasn’t going to hold hearings for Garland all of the sudden.
I’m curious. Did you know that had those 70,000 votes switched, or whatever, that the GOP would be unable to pack the lower courts with young, right wing reactionaries, as they are currently doing? That the US would not have pulled out of the Paris Accords or reneged on the Iran nuke agreement?
That 30 million is probably a fraction of Adelson’s new GOP tax cut.
Warren Buffett has advocated a 50% tax on those who make a billion per year. And if there’s push-back, he says he’ll write a book called “How to live on 500 million a year”
“Ryan is not permitted to solicit seven figure political donations…”
Well, only a very corrupt and blind legal/regulatory regime could possibly conclude that Ryan did “not…solicit” this $30 mill from Israelson simply because he walked out of the room when the “ask” on the “long-sought donation” was ritualistically finalized by Norm Coleman. (Apparently Ryan’s “No 2 political aide” could remain?) One would think that if Ryan’s (or his office) sent Adelson any emails, ever talked on the phone about the matter, participated in planning the proposal and/or merely showed up to attend/participate in the very meeting when it was (obviously) known by all involved that the seven figure bribe was to be orally requested by (some other Repub), then under any sane interpretation of a “rule”, Ryan “solicited” the donation, illegally. But apparently not.
In any event, this is water miles under and beyond the collapsed bridge in the degenerate world of FailedNation, Inc. Obviously, America’s plutocrats are using their massive (Repub-enacted) tax cuts to poison the system with transparent bribery of elected officials or wannabes. Obviously, most members of Ryan’s Reprobates will receive some amount of this $30M bribe and will uniformly vote to curry the High Priest’s favor on his single issue–Greater Israel and an Iranian Holocaust. So much for the lessons of history, haha.
Since all this plutocratic corruption is apparently legal (indeed perhaps constitutionally required per Roberts’ Repubs), then our entire legal system would have to be changed, which would require (some) political party actually to highlight and run against the existing corrupt system. Why not turn this openly reported Adelson bribe to the entire Repub House into a national campaign issue, Dems? Or would Schumer perhaps object?
One would think that if Ryan’s (or his office) sent Adelson any emails, ever talked on the phone about the matter, participated in planning the proposal and/or merely showed up to attend/participate in the very meeting when it was (obviously) known by all involved that the seven figure bribe was to be orally requested by (some other Republican), then under any sane interpretation of a “rule”, Ryan “solicited” the donation, illegally. But apparently not.
John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy disagree with you. IIRC, Kennedy poo-pooed your concerns in his decision.
Nor does it. Engaging in the cosmetic sham of Ryan stepping out of the room is as clear an indicator as there could be that this was corrupt, i.e., unethical . . . and that all parties involved knew it was corrupt. If there were no corruption underway, there’d be no reason for Ryan to step out.
I sincerely hope some public-interest/good-government-type group(s) is/are already researching options for legal action arguing that that transparent, cosmetic sham does not in fact negate the violation of the laws you cited . . . or indeed has already filed such an action.
But aside from the legal question, the ethical one is already case-closed.
Once upon a time, we had
Five rightwing SCOTUS “Justices” abused the legal fictions of corporate personhood and that money is speech to gut it.
I can see only two ways to overcome that:
In 2012 The New Yorker had one of its trademark in depth articles on Macau and Adelson. Shady and dubious, for sure.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/09/the-god-of-gamblers
Steyer may have spent far more in 2014 and 2016 on Democrats than GOP donors spent but arguably he got very little for it. At the end of the day, it’s all about turnout. GOP voters vote and too many Democrats either can’t be bothered or have their votes effectively suppressed or wasted.
Hopefully, it may be different this year but I, for one, will be very surprised if a so-called Blue Wave really ends up happening.
I actually don’t share the view that Democratic voters don’t turn out. It may be true that those who might be MORE likely to vote Democratic are less likely to turn out, but I don’t count them as Democratic voters. The truth is that there are more voters who vote GOP than those who vote Democratic. We are, in my view, more Republican in this country than Democratic. Perhaps it’s because I am surrounded by so many GOP voting citizens who a couple or 3 decades ago were voting solidly Democratic. Their children and grandchildren are tending to vote as their parents and grandparents are doing.
Until we Democrats can craft more appealing,succinct, and viable reasons to vote Democratic we will continue to fight an uphill battle and will remain in the minority. My one immediate hope is that women of all stripes were simply gobsmacked by Trumps election and that enough of them are entering the fray to make a real difference in 2018.
In a twisted billionairey kind of way I’m now curious if Adelson’s donation, for instance, would bear up under scrutiny and prove to be all his?
What if the billionaire was in fact laundering monies from foreign entities? Let that one sink in.
Constitutional amendment.
Thus, impossible to rein in this type of influence.
If you’ve seen the “7 up” series, or especially Jamie Johnson’s docs, you know that being raised in a wealthy family can really fuck you up. These are damaged, isolated people with lots of power.
To those who say money itself is benign, I’ll raise you slightly and say let’s just go back to only giving wealthy land owners the vote. Any imbalance of power in a democracy is a problem for everyone.
The world could be a shangri-la for all life if enough of us worked for it to be so.
It is or should be a truism that big donations should be outlawed due to it’s corrosive anti democratic effects but is the DNC making that a major plank/constant talking point? They should. I suspect it would be a vote getter.
Billionaires having this much power is a feature, not a bug of the system. Sure, one man one vote was the enlightened foundation of Jeffersonian democracy. But our system allowed for the interpretation of money as speech, and we’re back to the original idea of the vote being the exclusive province of wealthy white landowners.
If only “the people” could come close to living up to the Jeffersonian ideals of an informed electorate.
“According to Bloomberg News, Tom Steyer spent more in disclosed donations than the Koch Brothers, Robert Mercer or Adelson during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.”-Boo
“Top Individual Contributors: All Federal Contributions”
https:/www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php?cycle=2016&view=fc
https:
/www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/us/koch-donors-george-mason.html
This doesn’t count state and local elections, only federal ones. In addition, it doesn’t count the influence of Koch and others donations and foundations that are compromising other institutions like universities. The Kochs have basically bought Wichita St. and Kansas University. George Mason is the most recent capture uncovered, and it was due to student activists, not an aggressive press.
They own the legislatures in states like Ohio, Kansas, and Wisconsin. They are making inroads in states like Iowa. Your wording and Bloomberg’s reporting is another example of muddying the differences, where there are very distinct differences in the effect of Right wing money and the Left. In reality, we don’t play the long game. They have been doing it since at least Nixon, and really since Goldwater’s ascension.
However, I do agree that Billionaires have too much power. I was thinking about why most people, at least outside of this place, have no problem with obscene and immoral amounts of accumulated wealth, when if that same person had thousands of spouses, they would be appalled. One of the reasons we encourage monogamy and penalize bigamy as a society, is that it can lead to an imbalance and inequality. If wealthy people took up all the available mates, those left out would act in ways that would be detrimental to a functioning society. Yet, we see no problem if a handful of people have most of the wealth and power leaving vast amounts of people with little to no power.