By Adam Weinberg
The last election was stunning. Over $3 billion dollars were spent in the federal elections. This represents a 30% increase over 1996. Not surprisingly, 90% of this money came from wealthy individuals and special interests, who often have business in front of Congress.
Money corrupts politics. In doing so, it has blunted efforts to move forward on the civil rights agenda we deserve. Campaign finance reform is a civil rights issue in two distinct ways. First, money disenfranchises people.
Over the last two centuries, many people have fought hard to rid our political system of the overt mechanisms that prevented all citizens from participating equally in our system of governance. We no longer have laws that allow only white male property owners to vote. We have removed a range of overt barriers to voting including: property, gender, race, and poll taxes.
In striking down these barriers, courts have followed the democratic principle that every law-abiding adult should have an equal vote and equal political power.
The problem is that the surge of money in politics prevents equality in elections. We now have “wealth contests” instead of democratic ones. Money can predetermine who runs for office and who wins. In races for election to the House of Representatives in 2000, the candidate who spent the most money won 98% of the elections. In the Senate the percentage was 85%.
Second, money prevents politicians from focusing on the concerns of their constituents. Given the cost of running for office, politicians depend on, and therefore primarily respond to wealthy funders. For example: if it costs $30 million to run for the Senate from
For example: the Bush campaign needed a half a billion dollars to win the presidency. It will need more to win in 2004. To obtain such sums the administration has to be responsive to groups that can help them raise that money. It has listened. In response to service sector companies, the Bush Administration retracted rules to protect low-income workers from computer related injuries. It listened to conservative groups and appointed an Attorney General who is hostile to a progressive civil rights agenda. And it has responded to the mining industry and forestry industries by reversing environmental regulations that had begun the process of addressing global warming and removing poisons from our water supply.
The disadvantage that is present in the electoral system for African Americans is particularly dramatic. According to data provided by Public Campaign, the people living in a single wealthy zip code area of New York City contributed 67 percent more to political campaigns than came from all 483 zip code areas in the country in which people of color comprise 90 percent or more of the population. This disproportion exists despite the fact that 88 times as many people live in the areas in which Black people are dominant than in the single zip code area that contributes so heavily to candidates. It is the effective disenfranchisement that this pattern represents that lead Congressman Harold Ford, one of the few rising stars within either party who is a person of color, “the increasingly exorbitant cost of running for public office allows special interests to exert too much influence over decision making in government, and accordingly, hampers average citizens’ ability to make their own views heard in a meaningful and influential way.”
What can you do?
Over the last year, college students around the state have been getting organized around the issue of campaign finance reform. They are joining a growing national movement that has already reformed the system in
The participation of college students from places like Colgate will make a difference. Students are essential to building a grassroots social movement that can win the fight against the corrupting effect of money on politics. Students can provide energy, ideas, and enthusiasm on their own campuses, work in coalition with students from other universities, and join with activists in their surrounding communities. By informing others, working on local and state initiatives, and supporting national efforts to democratize campaign financing, students play a key role in changing elections and changing
A student from a nearby school recently wrote to me, “As far as I know campaign finance reform is the only strategic backdoor we have in the US right now to address the pantheon of environmental, legal, human rights, etc…threats that we (and the rest of the planet) face at all levels. When it comes to this issue, I don’t think of myself as not choosing another maybe more specific cause, but rather focusing on all of my causes at once.”
Where to start and what to do about civil rights? Join the movement to get money out of politics by reforming the way campaigns are financed.
The author of this article, Adam Weinberg, is a co-founder of Democracy Matters.