I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment right to free speech. So why am I disappointed by the latest Supreme Court decision giving corporations (including unions and non profits) the right to make unhindered and unlimited campaign contributions? Wasn’t McCain – Feingold an unfair restriction on their right to have a voice? I agree with the logic of Supreme Court on strictly constitutional grounds. Our legal system has recognized corporations as having rights to be heard and to receive fair treatment under the law.

The problem is, we have a long history of money corrupting the political process in the USA. A sordid history that goes back at least 150 years, to the early national period soon after the founders got the Constitution and Bill of Rights written and agreed to. The Civil War, and the Gilded Age which followed were times when money bought political offices, frequently brazenly and in plain sight. Quips about ‘the Senator from Standard Oil,’ were based on the hard truth, that rich men could buy votes and offices. That was how William Andrews Clark became United States Senator from Montana. Reform movements have tried to deal with this problem for the past hundred and twenty-five years, but always, each effort to reform the campaign process to keep money from corrupting the political process fails. By 2008, U.S. Senate seats were once again rumored to be for sale, this time to fill the seat vacated by the President-Elect.

The Supreme Court’s decision, freeing up any group or person to spend as much as he (or the corporation) wishes, is not likely to improve the political process, or improve the public’s belief that the political process is fair and impartial. Of course, the people most critical of this decision are often members of our political Left, who conveniently overlook the fact that the effort to force government funding of campaigns failed when their candidate, Barack Obama, decided to opt out of federal funding for his campaign when he was so successful in raising money on the internet. It wasn’t the Republican who trashed the Left’s solution to too much money in the political process this time. However, both parties have more than enough blame to shoulder for our disfunctional political system, awash in large campaign contributions from corporate donors among others.

Perhaps what we need are a couple of changes in our legal thinking. At least one would probably need to be an amendment to our constitution, recognizing a very clear and precise distinction between speaking and spending in the campaign process. The other would need to be a recognition that money corrupts the political process when too much of it is available, and it is reasonable to limit money coming into a political campaign without limiting the right of persons who vote to speak freely. I think that requires the sources of money in any campaign to be strictly limited to the candidate and persons eligible to vote for him. If that requires another constitutional amendment, so be it.

Campaign finance reform on the Orson Buggeigh plan would be simple.
(1) The candidate may spend as much as he wishes of his own money on his campaign.
(2) No contributions of cash, goods or services of any sort may be accepted from any source except persons eligible to vote for the candidate.
(3) All contributions will be verified by the appropriate official responsible for supervising elections.
(4) All contributions will be a matter of public record, with the proviso that contributions above a certain dollar figure will be publicly posted on a public web site and released to the media within 48 hours of receipt.
(5) Any candidate accepting money from a person who is ineligible to vote for him will forfeit the election.
(6) Any person knowingly contributing to a candidate they cannot vote for will forfeit their right to vote. A first offense of a donation of under $200 will result in a five year loss of the right to vote, but a violation in excess of $200 or any second violation will result in a permanent loss of the right to vote.
(7) A person found to be acting as a conduit for contributions from any corporate body – for profit, non-profit, union etc – will lose their right to vote permanently, and the organization will be fined on proof the first offense, and have its charter to operate revoked on proof of the second offense.

A campaign funding system along my lines might return our political process to something closer to the republican form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It might give us a more genuinely accountable government. It would certainly cut the cost of campaigning, and that would allow our elected officials to spend their time actually doing the job they were elected to do, rather than campaigning. Is this realistic? I doubt it. There is too much money in the political process to get meaningful reform enacted. Still, it would be a start.

In my next post, a few comments on some of the other corrupting players in our current money-mad system.  They aren’t just multinational oil companies and other usual suspects.