The cheering from November 6 rings on as the Democrats continue to pick up victories in the House. The talk about 2020 mainly focuses on who are the likeliest and most qualified candidates to run for president.

But first, we have a number of structural problems in our democracy, and Democrats need to be on the forefront in addressing them. Most cannot be done alone such as abolishing the Electoral College and replacing it with a direct popular vote. But when it comes to how Democrats select their candidates, it is completely in the hands of the party.

First, let’s look at what’s wrong with the way we get to the point that we have nominees for president and vice-president.

1. It’s too damn expensive. No matter how many Democratic candidates hold up their hands and say I’m clean, almost all are not. Rather their hands are out begging for money. We can’t completely eliminate the insidiousness of this in one fell swoop, but we can rapidly diminish the toxicity of the process. Why not see how a majority of the American people would respond to the elimination of PAC money (of all sorts) and an elimination of all individual donations over $500. It would drastically diminish the money that candidates would have, but most of that could be saved in turn by not running sleazy ads on TV. It’s a wash, literally and figuratively.
2. It’s too damn long. The Iowa Caucuses are little more than a year away after we just completed an election cycle. If the convention is going to be in the middle of the summer, then let’s not start the primary / caucus season until late March. The weather is better then too.
3. Caucuses such as Iowa are patently unfair. At best, 2% of the voters show up in uncomfortable and often inconvenient venues on dates and times that are often impossible for many to make. Yes, Iowa does give many voters chances to individually meet candidates, but why only there and not in the brownstones of New York or the burned-out trailer camps of California? We would do much better with a system of regional primaries as previously suggested in Occasional Planet.

Democrats should have been focusing on these structural changes even before the 2016 election cycle ended. Reforming money in politics and the primary / caucus is a central to a progressive agenda as virtually any other plank in the platform. Reducing the role of money in politics (and ultimately having public financing) is essential to promoting affordable and comprehensive health care, protecting the environment and truly addressing the issues of economic inequality.

It’s too much to ask Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker or the dozens of other possible Democratic candidates for 2020 to focus on changing the process while they are playing the game by the current rules. What is needed is for those with stature and who will not be running again to lead the way so that no one has to endure the rigors, fatigue and unfairness of how they battled their way to the presidential nomination. I’m talking about both Clintons, Barack Obama, and possibly Jimmy Carter if he is healthy enough to do it. Carter has the most credibility of the lot, but perhaps it would be more effective if those who seemed comfortable wallowing in money and schlepping all over the country at odd hours to be the ones to be on the forefront.

Here is an opportunity for Democrats to do something without the excuse that Republicans won’t let them. Take the freebies; make yourselves happier and the country much more democratic.

The post A Slam-Dunk plan for Democrats prior to 2020 appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Most people understand that there is a problem with money in politics in the United States. Politicians spend countless hours fundraising instead of doing their elected jobs, lobbyists and corporations get special treatment over voters, and a few eccentric billionaires can buy politicians and elections in a way that seems…well undemocratic. The wonderful folks over at the Center for Responsive Politics have been working hard to make sure that someone is paying attention to where the glut of political money comes from and which politicians are accepting it. They’ve just released an interesting infographic that talks about Dark Money (money that’s used to influence voters where the source is unknown) and where it comes from. The infographic and more information on Dark Money can be found here.

The post Infographic: Dark money in US politics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The U.S. Supreme Courts’ 2010 Citizens United decision–combined with the more recent McCutcheon ruling– eviscerated the last vestiges of campaign-finance sanity and fairness. But those rulings also sparked a quest for a better way to fund our political system. In February 2014, Congressman John Sarbanes (D-MD] introduced a creative idea in a bill that many have found intriguing. The bill, H.R. 20, has been dubbed the Government by the People Act of 2014. In this case, that’s not an Orwellian title. The bill’s stated goal is “to o reform the financing of Congressional elections by broadening participation by small dollar donors.” According to an op-ed by Joe Nocera of New York Times, the bill has three main components:

• A $50 tax credit per donor per election cycle.
• A voluntary matching fund system. People who donate up to $150 to a candidate who has agreed to lower contribution limits and the full disclosure of all donations will have that donation matched 6 to 1 with federal funds. If the candidate agrees to take no contributions higher than $150, the match rises to 9 to 1.
• And finally, it allows candidates to raise additional matching funds in the last 60 days of the election if the candidate feels he needs it to ward off a last-minute advertising blitz. (The bill has disincentives to keep that additional money from being used unless it is really needed.)

The inspiration for the bill is New York City’s public-financing system, which provides public funds to match small donor contributions. The New York City plan specifies that:

In exchange for abiding by strict spending limits, candidates may be eligible to have contributions from individual New York City residents matched with taxpayer dollars. The Program matches each dollar a New York City resident gives, up to $175 per contributor, with $6 in public funds, for a maximum of $1,050 in public funds per contributor. To qualify for public funds, candidates must be in compliance with all Program requirements, be on the ballot, have an opponent on the ballot, and meet a two-part financial threshold that demonstrates a basic level of community support.

The New York City program, which has been used for city-wide and city council races since 1980, has gotten very positive reviews from candidates. A report published in May 2014 by the Brennan Center for Justice notes that:

…[candidates] have told us that by pumping up the value of small contributions, the New York City system gives them an incentive to reach out to their own constituents rather than focusing all their attention on wealthy out-of-district donors.

That’s an important result, because—according to an article published in 2013 in the Columbia Law Review that confirms popular opinion—large donations have a major impact on politicians’ views on issues:

“There is near consensus in the empirical literature that politicians’ positions more accurately reflect the views of their donors than those of their constituents.”

Sarbanes’ bill has garnered co-sponsorship from 149 Congressional Democrats and one Republican. It also has received strong backing from a large coalition of progressive, reform, labor and environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communications Workers of America, Service Employees International Union, the NAACP, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the Teamsters.

In his New York Times op-ed, Nocera notes that Sarbanes’ matching plan has a further advantage:

It engages small donors in the political process—and it gives them an incentive because their money is being maximized. But Sarbanes also likes it for another reason: It forces members of Congress and would-be members of Congress to actively solicit the money — and thus the views — of their constituents. “Because it rewards finding small donors, your priorities change,” he said. “You don’t get co-opted.”

Public financing of elections works. How do we know? Because 26 states have enacted and sustained some kind of public financing of election systems. Those states include Maine, Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina and Vermont.. The logic is obvious: Public financing of elections puts the power in the hands of voters, not donors. Unfortunately, in the U.S. Congress, logic is the underdog. But I’ll take it as an encouraging sign that at least some politicians are signing on.

The post An idea for campaign finance reform: A small-donor matching system appeared first on Occasional Planet.

A new report from the Center for American Progress shows how the soaring cost of judicial elections led to state supreme court decisions that favor corporate litigants over individuals seeking to hold them accountable.

In state courts across our country, corporate special interests are donating money to the campaigns of judges who interpret the law in a manner that benefits their contributors rather than citizens seeking justice. Americans are starting to wake up to this danger, according to recent polls, and are worried that individuals without money to contribute may not receive a fair hearing in state courts. In a recent poll
89 percent of respondents said they “believe the influence of campaign contributions on judges’ rulings is a problem.

The report provides illustrations from six states—Alabama, Texas, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan—of how corporate interest groups that desire a certain outcome have donated money to judges, and the same judges have then interpreted the law in a manner that achieves their corporate donors’ desired outcome.

In Ohio, for example, the insurance industry donated money to judges who then voted to overturn recent cases that the industry disfavored. In other states, such as Texas, the corporate-funded high court has interpreted the law to reach certain results that the state legislature rejected. This judicial policy-making by the Texas court has resulted in case law that favors energy companies funding the judges’ campaigns.

Cynics will not be surprised by the report. Nevertheless, the documentation of case after case of donors’ influence on court cases is shocking. It’s also an enlightening look into how the influence of big-money political contributors has invaded our legal system.

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