Op-Ed at Rutgers University, NJ

In continuing with the spirit of journalism activism, Simon Burger, Campus Coordinator at Rutgers University in New Jersey, wrote an excellent op-ed about the Hsu/Clinton fundraising scandal. He lays out the issue very clearly and leads the reader right into the solution. Good job!

“You get invited to dinner somewhere and someone gives you some money. And then you get a call a month later and he wants to see you. Are you going to say no?”—Former Congressman Peter Kostmayer, Pennsylvania.

Whether Norman Hsu is guilty or not, and whether or not Senator Hillary Clinton’s political campaign or any other knew about his troubles with the law, the funding scandal involving campaign funds from this business executive are just another symptom of the broken system of campaign finance we have here in America.

The sheer amount of time that both the media and various campaigns have spent on this case is argument enough for a change. But let’s look at the other factors, and see exactly why publicly funded elections are not just a good idea, they are necessary if we want to return any semblance of trust to our political campaigns, and to our politicians, here in the United States.

The current limit on contributions from one person to a candidate is $2,000 per election cycle. This may not seem like a lot, but let’s keep in mind that very few people can actually afford to go around dropping $2k on their favorite candidate, let alone sprinkling the legally allowed $95,000 between the candidate, his or her party, and the Political Action Committees that support them. This is just for one candidate; it’s standard practice to donate to both sides, so just in case your favorite doesn’t win, you’ve still got an inside man.

All this means that giving money to your candidate becomes restricted to the super-wealthy. According to data provided by the Senate Office of Public Records and publicly available at opensecrets.org, roughly .01% of Americans contribute over 40% of total political contributions.

There is also no restriction on bundling, where one fundraiser can hold an event to raise money, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars (Hsu raised $850,000 for Clinton) and then tying it all together in a neat package for delivery to their candidate of choice. Of course, the checks still have the original contributors’ names on them, but who has time to pay attention to that? The real credit goes to the bundler, who garners special titles like Clinton’s “HillRaisers,” Rudy Guiliani’s “Team Captains,” and Mitt Romney’s “Founders.”

One can certainly argue that raising this much money for a candidate has no influence on them, but this is simply a distortion of reality. The pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $30 million during the 2002 Congressional election. In 2003, the new Medicare bill contained little to no stipulations for price negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, leaving our seniors with huge prescription costs. Surprised?

Contending that this would be the bill that many Congressmen would vote for anyway is certainly plausible, but it is ridiculous to say that nobody was influenced by campaign contributions. Bush spent $300 million and Kerry $240 million in the 2004 election, and the cost of the average Senate campaign is almost $8 million. A viable campaign simply can’t be run without huge campaign fundraising. This leaves us with politicians who must consider their campaign finances when deciding how to make laws. They might not want to—they have to. In fact, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republican Mike Huckabee have all spoken in favor of campaign finance, all the while accepting these contributions. Are they talking out of both sides of their mouth? No, they simply have no choice.

Does this mean to get any reform we all have to vote for Obama, Edwards, or Huckabee? No, fortunately not. We can achieve change without supporting any specific candidates by urging our Congressmen to vote for the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA). This act would provide FULL public financing for elections. This would mean that once a candidate acquired substantial public support, they would receive full funding for their campaign, according to a formula that would actually allow these politicians to stay entirely competitive. FENA doesn’t raise free speech issues, like mandatory funding systems, because it is entirely voluntary, and the cost to each taxpayer ends up being less than $20. Cheap! And in return? We get a more diverse group of candidates. We get politicians who concentrate on the issues, instead of the money they need to raise. And, we get the trust that our legislators our working for us, not for the wealthy special interests that get them elected.

Op-Ed at Nassau Community College, NY

Writing op-eds and submitting them to school and local papers is a great way to generate attention to a variety of issues and their connections with money in politics. Above is an op-ed written by Andrew Calderaro at Nassau Community College.

Democracy MATTERS: Remembering 9/11 with Reform

By Andrew Calderaro

In a poll conducted last year by Lake Research and Bellwether Research, 82% of likely voters believed that overwhelming change would result from publicly funded elections (as opposed to the current system of private financing). Although lower, 52% viewed Congress as unethical and 66% asserted lobbyists were unethical. While many incidents could be used to dignify proposed campaign finance reform, the anniversary of September 11, 2001 is one event above all others that should compel us to rethink our electoral process.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American populace of the growing military-industrial complex. What he meant to say, though advised not to, was the military-industrial-congressional complex. The roughly 3,000 who perished in the Twin Towers, the nearly 3,800 soldiers who have died and close to 30,000 who have been injured in Iraq are numbers that pale in comparison to the profits made by military contractors for contracts awarded by Congress for services in Afghanistan and Iraq -- i.e. Kellogg, Brown and Root alone (a former subsidiary of infamous Halliburton) received over $11,000,000,000 in contracts by 2004 -- a result of the very phenomenon Eisenhower foreshadowed nearly a half-century ago. This anniversary, we must consider not only the military-industrial-congressional complex, but the entire system of privately financed campaigns and resort to a different sort of reflection with hard-line questioning: If getting elected to office requires millions of dollars and much of this money is paid by the corporations benefiting from laws and government contracts, who do laws and decisions like whether or not go to war in the first place favor? How does this affect our democratic ideals? Most important, how is this epidemic to be solved?

Elected office has historically been for the wealthy and those with access to the requisite financing. According to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), during the 2004 election cycle the average cost to win a seat in the House of Representatives exceeded $1 million; to win a seat in the more exclusive senate typically ran a candidate over $7 million. Of course, some candidates were fortunate enough to spend a little less, though others doled out a bit more than the average. For example, Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) spent well over $3 million in 2006; in 2004 Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) raised nearly $14 million; in 2006 Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spent close to $41 million, and the list goes on.

Despite the alienation of the poor and those of moderate means from elected office, self-financing of campaigns is seldom relied upon. Candidates turn to private contributions from individuals and political action committees (PACs - private organizations formed to elect a candidate, usually on behalf of a corporation or special interest). The Center for Responsive Politics reported that in 2004, PACs from the top ten contributing military contractors spent $8.17 million. In 2000, these same groups spent nearly $60 million to lobby the federal government.

Campaign contributions are funneled to all the right recipients. For example, the defense sector naturally targets members of the Armed Services Committee both of the House and the Senate. During the 2006 election cycle Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) added nearly $250,000 to his war chest; Senator Bill Nelson's (D-FL) campaign efforts were aided by a $178,000 boost; not to be outdone, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) received $275,000, and so on. In turn, they're expected to support and even draft legislation that aides their contributors. Given this, it is no surprise that the top ten donating military contractors -- Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Co., United Technologies, Honeywell International, SAIC Inc., and DRS Technologies -- received over $82 billion in federal
contracts in 2003 alone.

When there is this much money and power involved in military contracts and running for office, there is an incentive not to merely go to war, but to stay at war. The U.S. citizen must ask himself: Why wouldn't the U.S. go to war? Further, what other aspects of our lives can the powerful benefit from exploiting?

The defense sector is just one of many engaged in this political symbiosis. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that on a list of top campaign contributors from all sectors dating back to 1990, the highest ranking military contractor is Lockheed Martin -- at 36th. Thought that FedEx was content with simply delivering that birthday present from your aunt halfway across the country? It ranks 21st on the list. Next time you dig into a bowl of Kraft's creamy mac & cheese, don't forget that Kraft's parent company, the Altria Group, ranks 16th. At the top is the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which has donated nearly $40 million in the past 15 years, including substantial support for John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid.

With substantial sums of money exchanging the hands involved in our electoral process, it is only natural that some measures of regulation have been put in place. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first mainstream champion of reform, though his turn-of-the-century efforts were far from comprehensive. It wouldn't be until the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and the creation of the Federal Election Commission in 1975 that oversight of campaign contributions would gain greater notoriety. More recently, presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002, and the currently Democraticly lead 110th Congress passed certain regulations shortly after taking office. All of these efforts however, have proven porous and ineffectual in averting corruption and shadow relationships like the military-industrial-congressional complex. What is necessary is full public financing of campaigns, an immerging solution in the form of Clean Elections.

Clean Elections is a compelling alternative to the current campaign finance system. It is a voluntary system of full public financing that offers all citizens the opportunity to run a viable campaign, while freeing the electoral process from dependency on private funding. While this may seem too good to be true, Clean Elections should not be chalked up as some grandiose utopian ideal. Many localities have already implemented the Clean Elections system, and it is thriving in statewide elections in Maine and Arizona, and in some form in New Mexico, Vermont, North Carolina, the cities of Albuquerque and Portland, OR. Connecticut will offer Clean Elections starting in 2008. Remarkably, according to Fair Elections: A Practical Guide to Full Public Funding of Congressional Elections, in 2006 78 percent of Maine's candidates used the Clean Elections system; in Arizona, 58 percent of general election candidates participated, including Gov. Janet Napolitano (D).

To participate, all one must do is prove he or she is a viable candidate by collecting a small number of Qualifying Contributions, usually $5 per donor. After the satisfactory amount (as deemed by the state or locality) has been collected, private donations end. The candidate then begins to receive public financing from a Clean Elections commission for the primary election and, if he or she wins, for the general election as well. For example, Maine Clean Elections candidates in a gubernational contest receive primary election funding equal to 50% of the general election allocation. State representative and state senate candidates receive primary funding equal to 30% - 40% of the general election allocation. If a participating candidate is facing a privately or self-funded opponent with an exorbitant war chest, the commission will dole out "fair fight" funds to strengthen the Clean Elections effort.

Many non-profit, non-partisan lobbies and think tanks were created to see Clean Elections established in more cities and states. Democracy Matters was founded for just this purpose and has been thriving since its inception. Started in 2001 at Colgate University in upstate New York by alum and NBA player Adonal Foyle, Democracy Matters has taken the college community by storm. To date there are nearly 100 college chapters from New York to Hawaii. Luckily for Nassau Community College, Long Island's first Democracy Matters chapter was established on campus this semester. With an exciting hands-on agenda planned, Democracy Matters at NCC will further educate the college community about the current state of America's electoral process and how Clean Elections can effect change. In time, this chapter will have proven to be one of the instruments of change in the Clean Elections effort. Any student can become involved; indeed, there is no better time to consider participating.