I’ve seen a lot over my decades in politics, and not much alarms me. But I have to be blunt: Money is poisoning our political system.
The people who matter most to a representative democracy—the ordinary voters in whose interests elected politicians are supposed to act—feel as though they’ve become an afterthought in the political process. The tidal wave of money washing over our elections, with no end in sight, is causing Americans to lose faith in the system. In that way, the course we’re on threatens the core values and principles that define us as a nation.
Oddly, many politicians see no problem—except perhaps the inconvenient need to spend a significant portion of every day dialing for dollars. They don’t, however, believe this is corrupting. They don’t believe they’re selling their votes, or even that money influences their behavior.
Most Americans believe differently. Poll after poll finds that about half the voters think members of Congress are corrupt. A Democracy Corps poll last summer found clear majorities across the spectrum worried about the impact of Super PAC spending as “wrong” and leading “to our elected officials representing the views of wealthy donors.”
In fact, while it is a rare member of Congress who would change his or her vote because of money, there is ample evidence that where the majority of Americans and a small but wealthy minority disagree, the influence of money on politics tends to outweigh the views of ordinary voters. When donors contribute heavily, they have a disproportionate influence over the legislator; that’s not “corruption,” but it means that opinions of average citizens are diminished and the views of the big donors are amplified when it comes to policymaking.
If it appears that this state of affairs has gotten worse in recent years, it has indeed. A series of Supreme Court decisions over the last half-decade has resulted in Super PACs’ unfettered ability to raise and spend money, and freed individuals from limits on their giving. The result has been not just the surge in campaign spending we’ve seen, but the fact that much of it is “dark”—or beyond the ability of journalists and regulators to discern its sources.
