Just read the dismal news that the Supreme Court has gutted the McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign contributions that have been in effect for 20 years, thereby once again permitting corporations to make unlimited contributions to political campaigns.
The toxic influence of campaign donations on politics should be something that Republicans and Democrats could agree on, but it seems like reinstating these kinds of restrictions would require a constitutional amendment at this point. I’m in favor of an amendment that says that contributions should only be permitted by natural persons and limited to something very low like $100 per candidate per election cycle, but good luck getting something like that passed. Without a rule like that, we’re basically conceding that America is a plutocracy, only permitting the wealthy and powerful corporations to have access to political influence. This is a tragedy for our society.
There is a possible alternative that might mitigate the quid pro quo effect of campaign contributions: anoymizing campaign contributions. To make this happen, we would set up an independent government corporation, a payment processor which would be the sole legal way to contribute to any federal campaign. The payment processor would take in donations, verify that they are legal, then lump the funds together and disburse them to candidates on a monthly basis during a campaign. It would be illegal for candidates or anyone working for them to handle contributions except the money given to them by the independent payment processor. Records pertaining to contributions would be kept and released — but only after the candidate leaves office.
This would enable people and organizations to contribute freely to candidates, protecting their (apparently) Constitutionally-protected right to engage in institutional bribery, but it would remove the appearance of quid pro quo. Influence, not money per se, is what’s so gross about large campaign contributions (particularly where corporations are concerned, since we can assume that nearly 100% of their donations are an attempt to buy influence). But by disconnecting the donor from the money, you go a long way toward reducing the potential that a particular donor will influence a particular candidate.
One other thought: I think it would be important to limit the anonymizing function only to candidates in national elections (as opposed to extending it to state ballot initiatives). We’ve had a few problems in California in recent years with various out-of-state interests screwing up our state Constitution with various scummy ballot initiatives; we should continue to be able to find out who’s funding these attacks.
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