CAMPAIGN AND LOBBYIST REFORM

Campaign and Lobbyist Reform Aaron Kohler DeVry University Professor Sanderovsky 6/16/2013

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A government run for the people and run by the people. This was the concept behind the creation of the United States representative government. Tired of the kings and queens, the theocracies, the emperors and dictators; we desired to be free, not to be ruled. So, our founding fathers created a republic in which we the people elect not a ruler, but a representative to make national decisions and policies based on what their district wants and needs. It is a simple concept, but one that has not held up in the rapidly changing world of the 21st century. Today, politicians hardly represent the districts that are depending on them. With lobbyists and campaign financers drowning out the voice of the people with limitless money, our political system has been hijacked. Unless we reform how money influences the political process, we will never have a government run by and for the people. Campaigns The first kink in the system is the entire campaign process. It takes an enormous amount of money just to run. In fact, the Federal Election Commission states on their website, If you are running for the U.S. House, Senate or the Presidency, you must register with the FEC once you (or persons acting on your behalf) receive contributions or make expenditures in excess of $5,000 (Federal Election Commission, 2013, p. 1). This $5,000 is required to register with the FEC in order to be an official candidate. Right away this wards off the average American from even attempting to run for federal office. In addition, the amount of money some of these senate winners spend is mind blowing. For example, a senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, reported $14,718,991 as his operating expenditures to win the senate seat as a new comer (Federal Election Commission, 2010, p. 1)! This is an incredible amount of money, and nearly 9 million of those dollars were loans! With a basic senators salary at just $174,000 per year with a 6 year

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term, the math just does not add up from an investment standpoint. The only way it makes mathematical sense is that his loan repayment strategy is to use the power of his office to rake in a minimum of 8 million dollars within the 6 year term, from lobbyists and insider trading. Ron Johnson would have to make 8 million dollars in 6 years just to break even on the principle of his campaign loans. The amount of money Ron Jonson was willing to invest seems to suggest that a senate seat has a black market value in the tens of millions. Lobbyists The next contender for biggest flaw in representative government is the lobbyist. The technical definition of a lobbyist is someone who advocates for someone else, and is getting paid for it (Attkisson, 2012, p. 1). More specifically in regards to government, a lobbyist is a person who represents a special interest and takes on the task of getting congress to make or strike down laws that would benefit the special interest. Getting the attention of a congressman or congresswoman is no easy task, unless of course you throw around a lot of money. As stated previously, many of our elected officials took out millions of dollars in loans and need to recoup their money somehow before their term is up. For this reason, a lobbyist with great financial backing has the greatest chance of getting an elected officials attention and cooperation. In an ABC interview with Brian Ross, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff states that 99% of the money in the system are [from] special interests. They are people who want something back. Altruism is not a very big thing at the big money level. There are some, and God bless them, but most people want something back. When asked point blank whether or not he was buying influence in congress he said of course and stated that is the greatest corruption in congress. Buying governmental influence is the 3rd largest industry in the country (Attkisson, 2012). Lobbyist and advocacy groups are spending $9 billion per year trying to influence law makers. To put this

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corruption into mathematical terms, divide $9 billion by the 535 voting members of congress. The math shows us that there is $16,822,430 floating around D.C. every year, for every voting member of congress. No wonder Ron Johnson took out a $9 million loan to win the senate seat for 6 years. The minute he gets to D.C. he knows there is the potential to have roughly $17 million showered on him every year for the next 6 years. It all makes sense now. Reform Blunders The evidence of corruption is overwhelming and the need for reform is abundantly clear. Campaign contributors and lenders are buying influence in the same way the lobbyists do. It is the proverbial Ill scratch your back if you scratch mine. Reform has taken place to fix the election process, but failed to fix the problem. The Tillman Act of 1907 made it illegal for corporations to give money directly to candidates (Hughs, 2013). The Taft Hartley Act of 1947 did the same thing as the Tillman Act but for unions. However, the corporations and unions found ways around these laws by creating Political Action Committees, also known as a P.A.C. which simply acts as a middle man to subvert the Tillman Act and Taft Hartley Act. In theory, the P.A.C. is supposed to be separate from both the corporations and the unions, while at the same time being separate from the campaign. The P.A.C.s can spend their money however they want, but they are not allowed to coordinate with the candidate. All this previous reform did, was create a false sense of improvement. It might make the general public feel like the election process is less corrupt, but in reality, how can any of this really be enforced? It is nave to think that P.A.C.s do not coordinate with candidates. Why wouldnt they? How would anyone know? Basically, the P.A.C.s became a legal form of laundering money for the purpose of getting money to their candidates. On paper the candidates never get the money from the P.A.C.s, but the P.A.C.s spend the money on their behalf.

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Laws used to regulate lobbyists are dreadfully similar and just as easy to circumvent. The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance states in section 13 of the Campaign Finance Guide that a lobbyist registered with the Office of Campaign Finance, or anyone acting on behalf of a registrant, may not offer, give or cause to be given a gift to an official in the legislative or executive branch or a member of the officials staff that exceeds $100.00 in value in the aggregate in any calendar year. For this reason, lobbyists use tactics similar to P.A.C.s to get around the law. All a lobbyist has to do is wrap a bribe up as a business deal to a separate legal entity that an official is associated with. With infinite conduits for money to flow, the loopholes are endless. So far, all previous reforms have the same integral flaw. They focus legislation on transactions which are prone to loopholes, rather than the root of the problem: Donation fueled elections distort and corrupt representative government. Course Correction Reform that will work will be reform that congress will reject. Asking congress to reform how money influences politics is like asking a fox to guard the hen house. It just isnt going to work. They have become too accustomed to having their $17 million showered on them annually by lobbyists and the like. The temptation is just too overwhelming to put a real end to any of these loop holes. The only reform that will bring back the purity of our representative government is leveling the playing field. Everyone has to have an equal shot to run for office, and that means completely scrapping the election process and building it up from scratch. Money must be completely removed from the election process. All marketing and purchasing of advertisement must be banned. All campaigning should be done on a regulated public forum in

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which all candidates get equal exposure and equal opportunity to debate, and the registering of candidates should be based on the popularity of their ideas, not their ability to raise funds. The opposition will predictably argue that there is no need for such an extreme course correction. They will retort by saying that lobbyists and campaign contributors get a lot of good things done. It is important to remind the opposition that our representatives are supposed to be doing good things anyway. It is their sole purpose for being in D.C. (supposedly). If it takes an additional $9 billion dollars a year to get them to do these good things, it only supports the premise that a major change needs to take place. Conclusion If we cannot change the role of money in its relation to congressional influence, this government simply will not serve the people. With the campaigning laws allowing P.A.C.s to thrust corporate and union pawns ahead of the average American, we can never get real representation. With lobbyists spending $9 billion a year on the purchasing of congressional influence, they can never hear the voice of the people over the noise of their cocktail parties. As long as congress stands to make their fortunes, the people can ask for change until they are blue in the face, but they will never get it. The people unfortunately have no choice but to decide when enough is enough, and make their public servants act like servants instead of rulers, or to watch America continue down a road of degradation to an end unknown.

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References Attkisson, S. (2012, October 7). Behind the closed doors of Washington lobbyists [Web Article]. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_16257527490/behind-the-closed-doors-of-washington-lobbyists/ Corn, M. (Executive Producer) (2012, August 27). ABC World News With Diane Sawyer [Television broadcast] New York, NY: Time Square Studios. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video/super-lobbyist-pushes-reform-17091644 Federal Election Commission (2013). Quick answers to candidate questions. Retrieved from http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_candidate.shtml Federal Election Commission (2010). 2010 House and Senate Campaign Finance for Wisconsin. Retrieved from http://www.fec.gov/disclosurehs/HSCandDetail.do Hughes, K. (2013, April 12). Citizens United and Campaign Finance Reform [Video Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcnkgDHU9I8 Office of Campaign Finance (2013). Campaign Finance Guide. Retrieved from http://ocf.dc.gov/cfg/cfg_sec13.shtm