Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the latest in a series of rulings on campaign finance regulations – the Citizens United decision. That decision was the latest in equating free speech with the ability of individuals and corporations alike to spend as much as they wanted to advance a political point of view.
The Citizens United decision allowed large businesses to spend out of their corporate treasuries in ways that would have been illegal a few years earlier. As a result, hundreds of millions of new campaign dollars flowed into the elections of 2012 and 2014.
But now those decisions are being used as a justification for eliminating some of the remaining legal campaign limits.
In the end-of-the-year spending bill hammered out by Congressional leaders is a provision that dramatically expands the amount of money that wealthy entities can donate to the national political parties and eviscerates the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul.
The language – inserted on page 1,599 of the 1,603-page bill – allows individuals to give three times the annual cap on national party donations to three additional party committees set up for the purposes of the presidential conventions, building expenses and election recounts.
That means that a donor who gave the maximum $32,400 this year to the Democratic National Committee or Republican National Committee would be able to donate another $291,600 on top of that to the party’s additional arms -- a total of $324,000, ten times the current limit.
One rationale for this huge change was to help the political parties to compete with the Citizens United-spawned Super PACs that have come to dominate the electoral landscape. Those Super PACs were created as the vehicles for wealthy individuals, unions and big businesses to spend as much as they wanted on elections, but that money was spent outside of the candidates’ and the political parties’ efforts which were still restricted by still-legal campaign contribution limits. Thus, the argument went, the political parties have gradually lost their grip on power, particularly with the flood of outside contributions allowing wealthy donors to create multi-million dollar political action committees that can help campaigns far more than the parties.
As a result, proponents argued, the expanded contribution limits could significantly bolster the health of the parties at a time when independent super PACs are able to raise unlimited sums.
Moreover, the change was a classic political deal; the change was inserted into a massive spending bill. It was introduced at the last minute with no public hearings, or debate at all. And since the only option for the President was to shut down the government, he voiced his support for the overall spending deal in order to help round up Democratic votes needed to get the deal passed.
The result? If you are wealthy, or have access to immense wealth, the sky is the limit on your ability to spend in support of your preferred candidate or political party.
But if you are not wealthy, or have no access to immense wealth, you face very real limits. Very few people can write checks almost twice the size of the country’s median income. The change does achieve one thing – it gives the biggest donors another opportunity to influence politics and buys them more access to politicians.
In the recent midterm elections, the nation saw the dominance of big money. Sadly, instead of advancing reforms that would enhance the role of small donors, set real limits on big money, and ensure that the public knows where campaign contributions comes from, Congress approved changes that give the wealthy and powerful an even bigger role in elections.
In New York, which already allows essentially unlimited contributions, we have already seen what happens: a tiny fraction of the well-to-do and the organized dominate the electoral process. That system will now go national.
Governor Cuomo has rightfully denounced that system and has advanced reforms, as yet to no avail. In the same way as he did on fracking, marriage equality and gun control, the governor must fix New York’s campaign financing system and show the nation that this state leads the nation in reforms, not policy failures.
Blair Horner is the Legislative Director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
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