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Citizens United ruling another nail in campaign-finance coffin

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case struck down the portion of the existing campaign finance laws prohibiting certain corporate and union expenditures. Many feel it is the beginning of the end for the McCain-Feingold system, altogether.   Some, many of them Republicans, are happy. Others, many or most Democrats, are angry. All seem to agree it’s a momentous decision.

I’m a little bit less convinced. For one thing, much of the money involved seems to funnel into campaigns through the so-called 527 organizations anyway. The decision will make this spending a little more blatant, but not necessarily affect outcomes much.

I also think that the McCain-Feingold system was tottering as it was. There is a fundamental absurdity in allowing rich people to spend however much they want on their own candidacies but not anyone else’s. Mike Bloomberg spent something like $100 million of his own money and narrowly won reelection as New York City mayor. By contrast most of the current Pennsylvania congressional candidates are having trouble scraping $1 or $2 million together—and that’s in an unusually hot election year. That’s a very weird system no matter how you slice it, and sooner of later somebody is (was) going to put a stop to it.

I continue to think we need either public funding for all federal elections or, better yet, an entirely new electoral system, perhaps involving proportional representation on the model of several European countries. Electing lawmakers on the basis of oddly drawn districts and bizarre fundraising rules virtually guarantees that no one but professional politicians will bother—I couldn’t even get an accurate map of my district without the help of party officials when I ran for Congress.

We can keep dealing with the symptoms of the problem or we can attack it at it source.

February 5, 2010 at 2:56 pm

--Michael Livingston

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