For nearly as long as I can remember, the calls on the Left of the Democratic Party to get rid of “corporate candidates” have been getting louder and louder.
On the face of it, being against “corporate candidates” sounds like a good idea, especially if you are a progressive liberal. Who wants to help a person gain a seat they will vote from on behalf of big corporations instead of average, everyday Americans, right?
So in 1971 the US Congress passed, and Richard M Nixon signed into law the Federal Election Campaign Act (Public Law 92-225). For the first time in American history, political candidates and their campaign committees would be required to document WHERE their donor money came from and how they spent it.
Including the name of the donor’s employer and the industry in which they work.
From the pen of President Richard M Nixon in his signing statement on the Act which he signed into law on February 7, 1972:
S. 382, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, limits the amount candidates for Federal elective offices may spend on advertising, not just on radio and television, but through all communications media. It limits contributions by candidates and their families to their own campaigns. It provides for full reporting of both the sources and the uses of campaign funds, both after elections and during campaigns. By giving the American public full access to the facts of political financing, this legislation will guard against campaign abuses and will work to build public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 is a realistic and enforceable bill, an important step forward in an area which has been of great public concern. Because I share that concern, I am pleased to give my approval to this bill.
The highlight is mine alone, because for me, that is the most important part of the statement — and the basis for my question today.
Was Congress wrong to include that reporting requirement, and has that action increased Public mistrust of politics in general and elections and contributions in particular?
The further in time you get from that law’s enacted date, the stronger and louder the debate over funds contributed and noted as donated by someone connected to a specific company or industry has gotten — and I think it has been driving ideological arguments among American voters ever since, on a FALSE BASIS.
Talk to a man on the street or a network News anchor about the issue of “corporate contributions’ and you’ll likely get a somewhat similar answer from both — companies are being identified as having donated money to candidates.
Except that is not true, not in any sense. That money was donated by individual humans, who noted their employer and the industry they work in, as required by the FEC Act of 1971. The company which employs them had ZERO to do with it.
Which by the way, is also covered in modern campaign contribution forms, because future amendments to the Act required that donors agree that the money they are contributing is THEIR OWN MONEY, that it didn’t come from anyone else, or was being donated at the behest of anyone else.
So in NO WAY can modern campaign contributions come directly from the company they work for. That would be a crime.
Now the idea which the Congress at the time and President Nixon, too, appear to believe; that such disclosures would improve our election system; seems to be have been made in good faith.
But I ask you — with Citizens United an open spigot of unidentified donors of unlimited amounts of money available to spend willy nilly — is there any possible benefit of the FEC donor employer and industry filing requirements left which make sense to anyone?
I posit that the Act should be once again amended removing that requirement. The simple statement that the money is yours, from your own bank account, not contributed on behalf of or at the behest of any other person serves the purpose of providing ‘sunlight’ and disclosure — it ensures that hidden, secret money is not being used in the election process.
It would remove the huge argument ongoing in the Democratic Party about which candidates are better — those who get their donor dollars from people who work at Mom & Pops Corner Cafe vs those who work at Starbucks.
Which is truly a stupid argument, when the one which should be taking place is ‘does a candidate benefit more from donations or volunteers’ in the particular race, and where can you find more of both. THOSE answers can win races instead of dividing the electorate over misleading data which does NOT tell people what they think it tells them.
Thoughts?