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.