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Welcome! Here you may preview the first two parts (37 pages) of my book, plus preview the full Table of Contents. My writing of the remainder of the book is progressing well - Rick Hubbard
LEGAL BRIBERY BY RICK
HUBBARD © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. ************************************************* |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. A Day In The Life of An Average Citizen 5. Fewer, Pre-selected Candidates 6.
Increased Corruption or END OF PREVIEW NOTE: Footnotes exist for this preview edition, but are not presented here on the web site. Here,
in italics, is the "Table of Contents" for the remainder of my
Book. It's subject to change. Part 3 Case Study - Campaign Cash In Action 9. Enron Corporation - Buying Access and Influence Ken Lay's Early Beginnings The Birth of Enron Political Investments Political Returns Too Hot to Touch Enron Reflections Part 4 Citizens Pay 10. How Much and How Often 11. Inflated Costs for Drugs 12. Higher Costs for Fuel and Electricity 13. Higher Taxes to Subsidize the TV Broadcasting Industry 14. You Don’t Care – Mitch McConnell Bets Against You Part
5
The 1st Amendment 15. Our Speech or Theirs 16. The Supreme Court 17. Pieces of the Puzzle Individual Contributions PAC Money Soft Money Independent Expenditures 18. The Great Split in the American Civil Liberties Union 19. First Amendment Scholars Speak 20. The Fight For Reform Part 6
Distorting Our Nation’s Priorities 21. Budget Reflections 22. National Security 23. Education 24. Health Care 25.
Environment Part 7
Resurrecting Our Democracy 26. Our Rights to Representation 27. Money from Citizens – Not Special Interests Private Returns For Citizens Public Returns For Citizens 28. Grassroots Progress Maine Massachusetts Vermont Arizona 29. The Road From Here © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved.
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This book is dedicated to a woman who is particularly special to me. She symbolizes all the citizens in America who understand the importance of restoring our democracy and equality of citizen participation in our political system. These are the citizens who are working, often in little noticed ways, to educate others about the importance of this issue. Specifically, I speak of feisty, committed, persevering 91 year old Doris Haddock of Dublin New Hampshire, known affectionately to many of us simply as “Granny D.”
It was Granny D, then 88, who on New Year’s Day, 1999, in
Pasadena, California began her walk across America to highlight the
importance of campaign finance reform. Through her many television,
newspaper and radio interviews and appearances and also through her
website at http://grannyd.com she
reached hundreds of thousands of American citizens to raise awareness
about how big campaign contributions from special interests adversely
affects the vast majority of American citizens. Granny
D traveled 10 miles a day, camping out at night or sleeping in private
homes. Ignoring her bad back, arthritis and emphysema, she completed the
3,200-mile trip in 14 months, shortly after her 90th birthday, arriving
in Washington on February 29, 2000, to the tune of 2,200 supporters
chanting, "Go, Granny, Go!” She brought with her petition
signatures from thousands of American citizens demanding that Congress
enact meaningful reform. Granny D inspired me. I figured that if a then-89 year old woman could feel strongly enough about this issue to walk more than 3000 miles across our entire country, the least I could do, as a then 58 year old Vermont candidate for the U.S. Senate, was to walk the length and breadth of my home state to highlight this same issue. © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved. *************************************************
This book is for you.
You are likely one of the 96 percent, the vast majority of us
American citizens, who did not contribute a dime to any federal
candidate or political party in the year 2000 federal elections. If you
are among that remaining 4 percent who actually did contribute, chances
are also excellent that you are not one of the 3/10ths of only one
percent of American individuals who contributed 44 percent of all
individual contributions in amounts of $200 or more. One third of these
amounts of $200 or more were contributed in maximum amounts of $1,000. The political candidates you and I chose among, (if we even voted, since more than half of us did not), in the November 2000 elections, were pre-selected and brought to us by a tiny minority of the wealthiest and most powerful financial interests in America, which helps to explain why millions of Americans regard our elected public officials, our employees, as representing "them" more than "us." So why should we care that winning candidates owe their rich and powerful backers a great debt of gratitude, and have tremendous incentive to please them in crafting federal policy and legislation? Because this is where we, the vast majority of citizens are affected. Pleasing these rich and powerful backers ends up costing us plenty, regardless what political party we support or ideology we hold. The power of big money from special interests treats all of us, Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Independents, and Americans of other parties, with equal arrogance. We all pay the higher prices for brand name drugs before being allowed to buy cheaper generic substitutes, because Congress, after receiving $18.6 million in campaign contributions, recently passed legislation to extend their drug patents longer, costing us as consumers as much as $550 million a year at the pharmacy counter. We all pay higher prices for larger, heavier cars using extra gallons of gas at the pump because Congress, after receiving over $5.7 million dollars in political contributions, has failed for the last 5 years to increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards to require that the Automobile industry continue to manufacture a mix of automobiles each year that are increasingly fuel efficient. The higher prices for larger cars using extra gas at the pump cost us an estimated $59 billion a year. That’s over $600 per average American family from our wallets. We all pay more taxes to our federal treasury because Congress took substantial contributions from the broadcasting industry and, five years ago, legislated away a new digital part of the public airways for free to existing licensed broadcast companies. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that not auctioning off the right to make money using the public airways for digital transmission cost our federal treasury up to $70 billion dollars. That’s over $700 per American family we have to make up in our taxes. Taken
together, we all pay hundreds of billions of dollars for these and for
other benefits conferred by Congress on these special interests. We pay
part of this money out of our wallets at places like the pharmacy
counter and at the gas pump. We pay more money from our checkbooks, for
higher taxes to replace the money that never came into our federal
treasury, due to Congressional subsidies and gifts to selected
industries. Congressional
leaders opposing change to this system don’t even attempt to explain
why continuing this system is in the best interests of us, the vast
majority of American citizens. Mitch McConnell, who leads the offensive
to protect the current system openly bets against us. He openly and
arrogantly says we don’t care, it’s not important enough to us. The
wealthy and powerful financial interests supporting incumbents in
Congress bet against us as well. They know that the less we care, the
less we pay attention and participate, the more leverage they have in
getting their views heard and their preferred legislation and policies
enacted. In short, our indifference increases their strength and
influence. I
believe in the American public’s ability, once properly informed and
motivated, to take action and make sensible decisions about the future
of our democracy and our full representation as citizens. The first step
is to become better informed and motivated. That is the purpose of this
book. In it I will explain how the present system affects us, what it
costs us, and why it reduces our confidence in government today.
The extensive influence of money in our political system may be
the most important public policy issue of our time, for it goes to the
heart of our democracy and equality of representation. Our government should be, as Abraham Lincoln so well expressed it in his Gettysburg Address, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. So let us return our government to this ideal. As American citizens, we have a constant responsibility that our government remain of, by and for the people, not the special interests. The very survival of our representative democracy is at stake. Our right to alter our government for the common good must be used to check the influence of special interests with disproportionate access in our halls of Congress, and to restore our government in service of our common interests as citizens. This is our duty, to our children and to future generations of American citizens. ************************************************* On July 4, 1776, our thirteen North American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain and the founding of the United States. The Declaration of Independence enumerated their grievances and injustices in order to secure more appropriate representation for its citizens. On September 17, 1787 delegates from the original 12 states enacted our Constitution. Since that time our government has grown to include 50 states and we have enacted 27 amendments to our Constitution, including the famous first 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights. More than two centuries later, on April 21, 2000, shortly after 2pm, 90-year-old Doris Haddock of Dublin, New Hampshire mounted the steps and entered the Capitol of the United States of America. Inside, she made her way into the Capitol’s rotunda and began to speak. Here are some of her remarks: “Dear Friends, ‘The First Amendment to the Constitution says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ‘We are peaceably assembled here, in this our hall, to freely speak, to petition our Government. Our grievance is that we no longer have proper representation. Our elected leaders are consumed by the need to raise election funds from special interests, and they no longer are able to represent the needs of the people or of our ravaged earth. ‘We must declare our independence from the corrupting bonds of big money in our election campaigns by reforming our campaign finance system. We must alter our government. As a people, we know how to declare our independence and authorize alterations of our government. Here is how we did so in Congress, July 4, 1776: Just as Granny D began to read from our Declaration of
Independence she was interrupted and she and some 31 others with her
were arrested. On Wednesday, May 24th, Granny D was in
court to plead guilty to the charge of demonstrating in the Capitol
building.
Then Chief Judge Hamilton of the District of Columbia Superior Court was
silent after Doris made this statement: “I was reading from the Declaration of Independence to make the point that we must declare our independence from the corrupting bonds of big money in our election campaigns. And so I was reading these very words when my hands were pulled behind me and bound: ‘We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these
rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it.” In sentencing, Judge Hamilton offered this thoughtful
perspective to Doris and the other demonstrators: "As you know, the strength of our great country lies in its Constitution and her laws and in her courts. But more fundamentally, the strength of our great country lies in the resolve of her citizens to stand up for what is right when the masses are silent. And, unfortunately, sometimes it becomes the lot of the few, sometimes like yourselves, to stand up for what's right when the masses are silent, because not always does the law move so fast and so judiciously as to always be right. But given the resolve of the citizens of this great country, in time, however, slowly, the law will catch up eventually." With that, Judge Hamilton released Doris and the others for time served and a minimal fine. © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved. Part One - MONEY RULES1. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN AVERAGE CITIZEN
Why should we care how campaign money is contributed to candidates?
Because it influences our lives and costs us plenty. Here's how. Imagine for a moment you’ve just begun to awake and chase the sleep away. You’re lying in bed at the beginning of a beautiful blue sky spring morning in your hometown of Edgar Springs, Missouri, some 846 miles west of Washington, D.C., and notable mostly because it’s the new US population center, according to the 2000 US Census. You’re Sally Jones, typical American citizen, age 38, married to Jack who’s 44 years old, stocky, brown eyed, black haired and still asleep beside you in the queen sized bed of your modest ranch home. Sarah, your daughter, age 14, is also still quiet and most likely asleep in the next bedroom. You glance at your watch and realize it’s 10 minutes before the alarm goes off at 6:30am, and you have a few more minutes to yourself. As you lie in bed, gazing out the skylight above, you reflect on the life you and your family have managed so far, and the day ahead. You own your own home, a 2 bedroom 1750 square foot ranch house on 3 acres of rural land just outside Edgar Springs. It’s been 9 years since you bought it, with a lot of help from the local bank. You drive a 1998 blue Ford Taurus, purchased new 3 years ago, to your job as an aid at the local elementary school. Jack drives a new Chevy Tahoe Sport Utility Vehicle to his job as a foreman with the local town highway department. You enjoy your home, family, and lifestyle but worry about the mortgage, taxes and your current outstanding VISA card balance. Although you and Jack both work hard, it seems you just can’t seem to get ahead. Mentally, you run through your upcoming day. “Okay, on my way to work at school, I’ll need to fill up the Taurus with gas. After school I’ll need to check on mom”. Although still living at home, her health is deteriorating. “On my way to visit mom, I’ll need to stop by the local pharmacy and refill the prescription for her high blood pressure medicine. Then, since it’s tax time I’ll need to fit in a second stop to pick up our income tax forms that are ready at the local accountant’s office.” I wonder, “how much will I need to write a check for this year”. An hour and a half later, you are out of the house and on your way to school. As you pull into the filling station and fill your Taurus with gas, you remember that you were here just last Thursday. “I sure do seem to stop by often to fill this tank” you say to yourself. Your day at school is quickly finished and at 3:30pm you climb back into your car to continue the tasks you’ve set for yourself. Your first stop is at the pharmacy to pick up your mom’s medicine to control her high blood pressure. As Mike, the local pharmacist hands you the refill of pills for your mom, you ask yourself, “Why are prices so high?” Your second stop is at the office of your CPA, Doris Handy, to pick up your state and local income taxes that have just been completed for you. As you quickly scan the forms, your eye drops to the bottom line of the federal form. “Okay, we only need to write a check for an extra $76 dollars for our federal taxes and we’ll get a small $40 dollar rebate on our state taxes.” You breathe a sigh of relief; the increased payroll deductions for federal and state income taxes you and Jack have paid all this past year have worked out about right. With income tax returns in hand, you get back into your car and drive the mile and a half to visit your mom at her small home. As you drive you worry. “What’ll I do if mom’s health problems get worse? Since dad died 2 years ago, she’s living alone on not much more than Social Security sends her. She can’t afford health insurance and although she’ll qualify for Medicare next year, I know there’ll be additional unpaid costs for prescriptions and other items that Jack and I may have to help out with if her money isn’t sufficient.” It’s probably not terribly comforting to you that your worries are mirrored by millions of other American citizens. Most of us are so busy we can’t take the time to fully investigate these kinds of concerns. It takes a lot of work by dedicated individuals plus the resources of interested organizations to develop the facts underlying concerns like these. Increasingly, however, these factual investigations are occurring and the evidence suggests decisions in Washington DC by Congress are costing us plenty. The deck is heavily stacked against you and against all of us American citizens. Senators and Representatives in Congress have tremendous incentive to please the small minority of wealthy special interests who provided the campaign contributions that helped them get elected.
For
this reason the present system distorts much of the legislation now
passed by Congress. For example, to please the automobile industry
Congress stops requiring the automobile industry to make its cars
increasingly fuel efficient, so citizens pay the extra $59 billion (over
$600 per average American family) in higher prices for heavier, more
expensive vehicles and in more money at the pump for extra gas. To
please the pharmaceutical industry, Congress grants a few years of extra
patent protection so we citizens pay higher prices for brand name drugs
for a longer time before being able to buy cheaper generic substitutes.
This moves as much as $550 million a year from our citizen pockets to
industry coffers. To please the television broadcasting industry in
switching from analog to digital television, Congress allocates part of
the public airways to existing television broadcasters for free without
going to auction, so we citizens at tax time must balance our federal
budget and make up in income tax payments and user fees, the $70 billion
(over $700 per U.S. household) not collected from the broadcasting
industry.
For all these reasons we should care. We are paying big time so
other wealthy and powerful special interests can get a great return on their
investment in campaign contributions. © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved. ************************************************* Suppose I could offer you, and every American citizen, at reasonable risk, an investment that would likely double your money every year, now and into the foreseeable future. Each year you’d get your investment back, plus an equal sum as a return on your investment and this would continue each year thereafter. Interested? I’ll bet you are! I can’t invest my own money today and get a return anywhere near as good as this. A return of 100% a year is a whopper of an investment. Our normal ways to invest money produce much, much, lower returns. If we invest in a savings or Certificate of Deposit account, we’re likely to earn a return of 2-5% annually. Investing long term in the stock market might bring us annual real earnings of from 4% to, if we are fortunate,15% and we are likely to average much closer to the lower number. In short, most of us can’t even come close to an occasional 15 – 25% return. An annual return of 100% or more is simply out of the ballpark.
So when I suggest there’s a way all American citizens can earn,
with reasonable risk, an annual return of more than 100% now and into
the foreseeable future, I bet you’re suspicious. That’s fair. We
citizens should be careful in evaluating such proposals. But consider
this. Suppose with an investment of $1 billion dollars from our federal
treasury on behalf of all citizens, we could have changed
Congress’s decision in 1996 to allocate for free
an additional part of the public airways to existing television
broadcasters so they could switch from analogue to digital tv. Government auctions are
routine these days for private companies wishing to make money by
providing telecommunication services through use of the public airways
for users of items such as cell phone and pagers. Such auctions
regularly bring $5 billion to $15 billion dollars into our federal
treasury. Citizens otherwise would have to provide this money in taxes
and user fees to balance the federal budget. This added allocation of
the public airway spectrum was even more valuable to TV broadcasters,
and they reached new highs in their Congressional campaign contributions
and lobbying efforts to secure it for free. The Federal Communications Commission estimates that when Congress voted not to conduct this auction of rights for TV broadcasters, and instead to legislated it away for free, it cost our federal treasury as much as $70 billion dollars. That's almost $700 per average American household that we had to make up in taxes and user fees to balance our federal budget. Think how in other circumstances this decision might have been made in reverse, and how it would have benefited citizens. Suppose on behalf of all citizens, a public investment of $1
billion dollars in annual CLEAN campaign money financed campaign costs
for all qualified candidates running for, and elected to, Congress.
Think how that would reduce the current disproportionate access and
influence of wealthy special interest contributors. Think of how this
would increase Congress’s incentive to place citizen interests first
and reduce Congress’s need to please their present wealthy benefactors
in formulating government policy and legislation. If this change in outlook
and incentive convinced Congress to auction off, rather than give away
for free, the additional part of the public airways, it would have saved
citizens from having to make up the $70 billion dollars our federal
treasury never received from the TV broadcasters. Citizens would have
received a return on their entire $1 billion investment of
up to 70 times on just this one example.
This is a phenomenal return on our investment. This example is just one
of many decisions Congress makes that affect the money in our wallets
and bank accounts. Giving big campaign funds of hundreds of millions of dollars to Congress currently brings special interest groups a return on their investment of hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It has gotten so far out of hand, that the concept can simply be flipped, to serve citizen interests. Why shouldn’t we citizens get huge returns on our investments? As you read the following pages and think about the facts presented, keep this example in mind. © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved. 3. ONE
BILLION DOLLARS
One billion dollars! In figures it's $1,000,000,000. For all those trying to gain access and influence over Congress, the President and all federal officeholders, this is what it takes. One billion dollars is the approximate average annual total of all the campaign money that must now be raised and spent by candidates for federal office.
Ninety-six percent of all American citizens don’t contribute a dime of
this one billion dollars directly to any candidate or political party.
The lion’s share of this money comes from a tiny minority of the
wealthiest and most powerful financial
interests in America. By providing this money to those candidates whose
views please them, they are able to largely select the candidates and
have substantial control over the issues and candidates that are
presented to the rest of us to choose among. Why shouldn’t each of the rest of us, the 96 percent of us representing the vast majority of American citizens, have as much weight in picking candidates whose issues we like? Shouldn’t we have as much say as those few who now have such a say and control over those who become candidates? It’s not likely to happen unless and until all of the campaign money, a little more than 1 billion dollars annually at present, comes to candidates on behalf of all American citizens. Interestingly, this amounts to a federal investment of only about $10 for every American household. Think of how that would change incentives for our federal legislators elected with “clean money” on behalf of all citizens. This would be a giant step toward providing Congress with proper economic incentives to form government policy and pass legislation that places American citizens first, rather than wealthy and powerful special interests. Whether and when that happens is up to us. As I begin to write this, our United States Senate has just completed its debate on campaign finance reform in March 2001. There was much talk about dangers from our present system. Senator Carl Levin, the well-respected senior Senator from Michigan summarized it this way. “We are facing a real crisis in campaign finance in this country. We have effectively no limits on campaign contributions, even though the law seems to provide that there be a $1,000 contribution limit from an individual, $5,000 from a PAC, and so forth. Because of the soft money expenditures, we in effect have no limits on campaign contributions anymore despite the law. The law has been evaded, avoided, bypassed, mainly now financing television ads, often negative, called issue ads. “I think most of us who have seen these issue ads who have been in this profession long enough recognize that there is no difference between the issue ad which does not name the candidate and says that you should vote against him, and the issue ad which says this candidate is great or his opponent is awful but doesn't use the magic words ``vote for'' or ``vote against'' and the candidate ad which uses the magic words ``vote for'' or ``vote against.'' During the Senate’s ensuing two week debate on campaign finance reform, there was much discussion about how proposed legislative changes would affect the balance between the Republican and Democratic parties, how to even the playing field when incumbent Senators were faced with better financed independently wealthy challengers and about the access and influence that resulted from present campaign finance practices and the worry Senators had about the resulting “appearance” of corruption. Startlingly, during the entire two weeks there was little discussion in our United States Senate about how poorly American citizens are served by present campaign financing practices that often tip legislation toward the special interests that provide it, about how much this costs American citizens, and about how this limits the number of qualified would-be candidates who aren’t either wealthy or have connections to wealthy interests.. By the end of the two week debate our Senate had voted approval for several changes to existing law: a doubling of the contributions individuals may give; an increase in the contribution caps that apply to candidates faced with an independently wealthy and much better financed candidate; a ban on soft money and limits on independent expenditures near the end of election cycles. Despite the Senate’s action, it is unlikely these measures will ultimately be approved by the House of Representatives where they face formidable opposition. So how will the majority of us citizens fare if, despite the odds, these measures are approved in approximately their present form by the entire Congress and signed by President Bush into law? Currently, a tiny minority of the wealthiest and most powerful financial interests in America contribute the bulk of all campaign money. Doubling the maximum $1000 contribution from these individuals to $2000 will make their contributions even more important to candidates. These huge increases in individual contributions are likely to largely offset amounts lost due to the ban on soft money. Soft money is the term for checks written without legal limit by corporations, organizations and wealthy individuals that are not considered contributions and thus skirt current campaign finance laws. Certainly, some of the loopholes these measures attempt to close are important. But will it result in any fundamental changes that cause Congress to put the interests of the majority of U.S. citizens ahead of the wealthy special interests? Will it change in any significant way the
fact that the lion’s share of all the money for federal candidates,
averaging about $1 billion dollars annually today, comes from a tiny
minority of the wealthiest and most powerful financial
interests in America? Will it change, in any significant way, the fact that 96% of all American citizens don’t contribute a dime of this one billion dollars directly to any candidate or political party? Will it change the tremendous incentive those elected to Congress this way have to please their wealthy and influential benefactors? Think back. Almost $70 billion dollars didn’t come in to our federal treasury when Congress pleased the television broadcasters by giving them additional use of our public airways for free. Suppose the limited changes to our campaign finance laws proposed by the Senate were in place in 1996. Do they go far enough to have caused Congress to decide differently to auction off the digital spectrum to broadcasters? Do they go far enough to have saved American citizens from having to make up this $70 billion from our taxes and user fees? This amounts to an average extra payment of about $700 for each household in America, in order to balance the federal budget? Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota certainly doesn’t think so. He is one of the small minority of U.S. Senators who believe much more reform is needed for our political system to work on behalf of all citizens. On March 19th, 2001 he rose in frustration to speak against the amendment offered by Senator Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, that would increase in the contribution caps applying to candidates faced with an independently wealthy and much better financed candidates. “Do you know how many U.S. citizens contribute more than $200 to a race today? Four out of every 10,000. That is .037 percent. Do you know how many Americans give contributions of $1,000 or more? It is .011 percent. So it seems to me that what we have is a system where people think if you pay, you play; if you don't pay, you don't play.” Senator Wellstone was greatly disturbed that the first amendment for campaign finance reform to be considered by the U.S. Senate would put more money from a special few into politics. “I do not think that is what people want to hear.” he said, “And they are right.” “That would just lead to increasingly large contributions by a tiny minority of our wealthiest, because average people don’t have that money” he said. “People do not go to $500,000 barbecues and all the rest. They have their own barbecues with their neighbors. People make $100 contributions to charities. They do not make these kinds of contributions.” He warned that putting even more money into politics by the very top of the population, by wealthy people of great financial resources, would make candidates ever more dependent on these few for contributions. It would end up with people who have their own resources, millionaires, versus people who have access to millionaires and large financial interests. “That is not the only choice.” he said. In Senator Wellstone’s view, if the U.S. Senate was serious about campaign finance reform, it must have a clean money, clean election proposal with public financing. “People agree on that” he said. “And then the public owns the elections.” He went on to say if a candidate doesn’t want to be bound by spending limits associated with clean money in clean elections, then there is additional money that can go to candidates who are being outspent. This additional money would make up for the advantage that those who are spending their own resources have. It would make it a level playing field. This way, “the race still belongs to the public” he said. “It still belongs to the people. And then the people who get elected belong to the people. And then the Capitol belongs to the people. And then the Government belongs to the people. And then people have more confidence in the political process. And people think they can be more involved. And little people, who do not have all the money, feel more important. And they are more important.” “This amendment is not a great step forward. This is one big, huge, gigantic leap backward” said Senator Wellstone. Consider the single previous broadcasting example. Ask yourself, did Congress give the interests of all citizens more weight than the interests of the television broadcasting industry in making this decision? Said differently, imagine the difference if the $1 billion required to explain candidates’ campaign positions to voters was contributed to candidates differently, on behalf of all citizens. If this change of financial backing freed Congress from the need to please their tv broadcaster benefactors and gave Congress adequate incentive to serve citizen interests by auctioning off the additional part of the public airways to the television broadcasters instead of giving it away, citizen savings in this one example could justify the ENTIRE annual $1 billion cost of public financing for some 70 years into the future. And this is just the savings from one example that represents the tip of the iceberg of savings. Think of the additional savings from all the other legislation now passed which benefits special interests at the expense of citizens. The financial stakes are huge for citizens. Revising the way we finance our elections to provide Congress with economic incentives to create government policy and pass legislation to benefit of the majority of all citizens, instead of special interests, can produce a phenomenal return on citizen investment. © 2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights reserved. 4. THE MONEY CHASECampaign spending at the federal level has rocketed upward in recent decades. For the two year 1983-1984
election cycle, overall campaign spending at the federal level was
$988.2 million, or an average of $494.1 million a year according to
figures from Federal Election Commission Reports as compiled by Common
Cause. Twelve years later, for the 1995-96 election cycle those same
reports show the overall total had increased to $2,131.2 million and the
yearly average to $1,065.6 million. These were both years in which we
elected our president and hence more money was spent than in the
following 1997-98 non-presidential election cycle when the figures were
traditionally lower. In this later cycle, the overall total was $1,392.4
million and the yearly average was only $696.2 million. For the most recent 1999-2000 election cycle, again a cycle in which we elected our president, the figures broke all prior records. [INSERT HERE the final FEC figures once compiled and released] The way this money is raised has had a devastating impact on the importance of citizens in our political process today. Many in Congress are willing to acknowledge this sorry state of citizen participation and representation. During the 2001 Senate debate on campaign finance reform, Joe Lieberman, Democratic Senator from Connecticut, challenged his colleagues to consider the following observations of America’s Democratic genius, by Alexis de Tocqueville, when he analyzed our Nation's political system during the 19th century: ‘The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause and the aim of all things; everything comes from them, and everything is absorbed in them.’ “How far we have come.” Senator Lieberman said. “I question whether any current observer of American politics could repeat de Tocqueville's statement with a straight face.” He went on to say, “Look at what has become of our system. Virtually every day in this city an event is held where the price of admission far exceeds what the overwhelming majority of Americans can ever dream of giving to a candidate or a political party. For $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, $50,000 or $100,000, wealthy individuals or interest groups can buy the time of candidates and elected officials, gaining access and thereby influence that is far beyond the grasp of those who have only their voice and their votes to offer. Senator Lieberman believes our national political parties publicly tout the access and influence big donor donations can buy. He emphasized: “one even advertises on its web site that a $100,000 donation will bring meetings and contacts with Congressional leadership throughout the year, and tells us it is `designed specifically for the Washington-based corporate or PAC representative, a donor group whose entry price is $15,000. “For that amount, the party's web site tells us, donors get into a club whose agenda is simple--bringing the best of our party's supporters together with our congressional leadership for a continuing, collegial dialogue on current policy issues.'' The political parties selling these tickets to access and influence have found buyers aplenty according to Lieberman. In 1997 he spent the better part of a year participating in the Governmental Affairs Committee's investigation into campaign finance abuses during the 1996 campaign. The committee’s attention was riveted by marginal hustlers such as Johnny Chung who compared the White House to a subway, saying, “You have to put in coins to open the gates,” and Roger Tamraz, who told them that he didn’t even bother to register to vote because he knew that his donations would get him so much more. “Is it any wonder,” said Senator Lieberman, “with these numbers, that the American people--they who are supposed to be the true source of our Government's authority--have been so turned off by politics that many of them no longer trust our Government or even bother to vote? “This must end or our noble journey in self-government will veer further and further from its principled course. When the price of entry to our democracy's discussions starts to approach the average American's annual salary, something is terribly wrong. When we have a two-tiered system of access and influence--one for the average volunteer and one for the big contributor--something is terribly wrong. And when the big contributor's ticket is for a front-row seat, while the voter's is for standing room only, something is most definitely terribly wrong.” Senator Olympia Snow, a Republican from Maine, echoed Senator Lieberman. She said “There is little question that there is a strong sense that campaigns in this country have spiraled out of control. There is a strong sense that elections are no longer in the hands of individual Americans.” Our Congressional representatives are not always open and honest about what they have to do to raise contributions. Here is the story of one who is. Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator from Georgia, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post early in 2001 that was reprinted in many newspapers throughout the United States. In it, he stated his deep misgivings about the current fundraising system. He wrote he doesn’t sleep as well today as he used to when campaigns weren’t defined by how much money can be raised and spent. Here is how Senator Miller describes what fundraising is like today. “I locked myself in a room with an aide, a telephone, and a list of potential contributors. The aide would get the ‘mark’ on the phone, then hand me a card with the spouse's name, the contributor's main interest, and a reminder to ‘appear chatty.’ I'd remind the agribusinessman that I was on the Agriculture Committee; I'd remind the banker I was on the Banking Committee. “And then I'd make a plaintive plea for soft money--that armpit of today's fundraising. I'd always mention some local project I’d gotten--or hoped to get--for the person I was talking to. Most large contributors understand only two things: what you can do for them and what you can do to them. “I always left that room feeling like a cheap prostitute who'd had a busy day.” Senator Russ Feingold, in the Senate debate on campaign finance reform, commented on the above opinion piece by Senator Miller as follows: “These are Senator Miller's words. Those are powerful words, and they are hard to stomach. I deeply admire the Senator from Georgia for many reasons, but especially for being willing to write what we all know to be true. Many colleagues have told me privately they are uncomfortable with this system. One Senator told me here on the floor that he felt like taking a shower after he had made a call for a $250,000 contribution. “We have Senators who can't sleep; we have Senators who feel they have to take a shower after doing fundraising calls. We have a pretty bizarre system. This system cheapens all of us.” Currently, our elected representatives can never have enough money, and candidates and parties alike have raced to raise the most. They are successful in doing this because contributions provide access. On March 19th, 2001 Senator Carl Levin, the senior, well respected, four term Democratic United States Senator from Michigan, had this to say about how this campaign money is raised. “In order to get these large contributions, access to us is openly and blatantly sold. We sell lunch or dinner with ‘the committee chairman of your choice’ for $100,000. This is a bipartisan problem. Both parties do it. “From an RNC, 1997 annual gala: ‘For $100,000, you get a luncheon with the Senate and House leadership and the Republican House and Senate committee chairmen of your choice.’ According to Senator Levin, Congress sells access to insiders’ meetings, strategy sessions, participation in congressional advisory groups, or trade missions. The effect of this, he notes, is that the open solicitation of campaign contributions in exchange for access to people with the power to affect the life or livelihood of the person being solicited creates an appearance of impropriety and a misuse of power. “From the Democratic National Committee” he reported, “for $100,000, you get a meeting with the President, you go on a trade mission with leadership as they travel abroad to examine current and developing political and economic issues, and a whole lot of other benefits--large contributions in exchange for access.” The conclusions drawn by these well respected Senators were seconded by Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity who extensively researched campaign finance facts and trends in their book “The Buying of the President 2000.” In it they commented that the ruling class of politicians and patrons has not felt compelled to open democracy to greater citizen participation. For example, they note that the 1996 Presidential election revealed what moneyed interests have done to the political process and they quoted journalist Elizabeth Drew who said in her 1999 book, The Corruption of American Politics: “The abuses of the campaign finance system, as practiced by both parties in 1996 …. destroyed what was left of this country’s campaign finance laws. There were now effectively no limits on how much money could be raised and spent in a campaign, and the limits on how it could be raised were rendered meaningless. Powerful people had undermined the law…….” ©
2001 by Rick Hubbard, a/k/a Richard M. Hubbard. All rights
reserved.
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