It is entirely too much to ask members of Congress to fix our nation’s broken campaign finance system.
They are, after all, utterly beholden to it.
Our elected officials depend on a vast universe of corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals to finance their campaigns, and many believe that money has corrupted the political process by making members more responsive to their donors than to the people who elect them.
Some of the money spent on electioneering is transparent, but an increasing amount is “dark money” ”“ money funneled through so-called “public welfare” organizations that don’t have to disclose the names of their donors.
“Partly as a result, spending by organizations that do not disclose their donors has increased from less than $5.2 million in 2006 to well over $300 million in the 2012 election,” according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Depending on our elected officials to reform the very system from which they benefit is futile.
The courts are no help, either. The U.S. Supreme Court ”“ in deciding that money is speech and that corporations have the same rights as people ”“ has ruled that the money flow is legal, absent a politician overtly agreeing to vote a certain way in exchange for a big greasy wad of cash.
It is against this backdrop that a movement has arisen to invoke Article V of the Constitution, which allows states to apply for a constitutional convention that would allow them to propose amendments to our governing document.
To this point in our nation’s history, Congress has been the source of all of constitutional amendments. It’s time to change that.
A committee of the New Hampshire House heard testimony about two Article V resolutions. The first ”“ sponsored by three Democrats ”“ targets the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that said limitations on political expenditures by corporations and unions were unconstitutional. That ruling ushered in a new age of political spending and gave rise to the Super PACs through which billionaires, corporations and unions can now funnel unlimited sums of money to be used to target candidates.
The second Article V resolution seeks to “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress.” Its sponsors are all Republicans.
On the surface, these resolutions appear largely unrelated. One seeks more responsive government by uncoupling the corrupting influence of money from the political process, while the other seeks better government by imposing limits on Washington spending and political careerism.
Our country could use both.
Decoupling money from the system may lessen the extent to which members of Congress in both parties are beholden to the campaign finance system, but that alone offers no guarantee that government will be more responsive. Cleaning up the money is a necessary condition for better government, but it’ll take more than that.
And imposing term limits and fiscal restraints on federal spending doesn’t address the corruption problem. If you limit the size of the pie but still allow big-money interests to control how it’s sliced up, those who can’t buy access will continue to be squeezed out.
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