Chris Fitzsimon
Early in the sentencing hearing of former House Speaker Jim Black Tuesday morning, the disgraced former lawmaker was explaining how in 2003 he promised to help two Republican legislators raise money if they agreed to cross party lines and support him for speaker.
Black testified that he told the lawmakers that the period between the November general election and the convening of the legislative session in January was a “fertile time to raise money†because a lot of people have an interest in getting something from the General Assembly.
It was a throwaway line on a day when Black talked publicly for the first time about bribery, the lobbyist who loaned him $500,000 and accepting cash from chiropractors and a strip club owner.
But Black’s comments about raising money go to the heart of the problem with our political system. It’s not the corrupt individual politicians who break the law who are the greatest risk. Like Black, they are usually discovered, investigated and punished for what they do.
Much more corrosive to the democratic process are the campaign practices that are legal, like the fundraising from people because they have direct interests in the General Assembly’s actions.
It is legal for wealthy interests to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a legislator or group of legislators and then ask that a certain bill be passed or defeated.
Political parties can and do accept unlimited contributions from special interests or legislative leaders and then funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to individual legislator’s campaigns, skirting contribution limits.
Personal wealth or the ability to raise thousands of dollars often determines who is considered a credible candidate, excluding most citizens from the ability to stand for election.
Interests directly regulated by a Council of State office like the secretary of labor, the commissioner of agriculture or the commissioner of insurance generally make the majority of their campaign contributions to candidates running for those offices.
The cliché is that money is the mother’s milk of politics. In fact, it’s the toxin that is poisoning the public perception of our elections and our government and undoubtedly affecting the decisions made by people elected to represent us all, not just the ones who
write the checks.
Wealthy campaign contributors and fundraisers are investors and they expect a return on their investments. Candidates who need hundreds of thousands of dollars for their campaigns seek those investors because most of us can’t write a series of $4,000 checks. But the investors’ money comes with strings and the public increasingly understands that.
The solution seems clear: Provide candidates with a clean source of money that comes with no strings. That is the principle behind voter-owned, publicly financed elections, a system already in place in Arizona and Maine and in North Carolina for the election of appellate level judges.
The General Assembly is now considering establishing a pilot public-financing program for three Council of State races in 2008: the state auditor, the insurance commissioner and the superintendent of public instruction. The House passed the proposal this weekend and it’s now before a Senate Committee.
The free market fundamentalists are mounting a ferocious campaign to stop it, claiming it infringes on freedom of speech, forces taxpayers to pay for campaigns of candidates they don’t agree with and boils down to welfare for politicians. They cite a poll by the Pope Civitas Institute that found 84 percent of people said no when asked if the state should use taxpayer dollars to fund political campaigns for Council of State.
But a poll by the Center for Voter Education finds that a majority of voters would support a taxpayer-funded candidate over a candidate relying on special-interest money. The public gets it.
Public financing in other states has withstood legal challenges because it is a voluntary program. Candidates don’t have to accept public financing. As for forcing taxpayers to pay for campaigns they don’t agree with, the public wants fair elections, free of the special-interests money given by investors with an agenda.
It’s odd logic from the right. Taxpayers support plenty of things they don’t agree with on the state and federal level, from the war to tax breaks for corporations, but they can’t pick and choose which government program is funded.
And as for welfare for politicians, apparently the folks on the right would rather elected officials owe their allegiance to the people who can afford to fund their campaigns instead of the people they represent. It fits with their obsession with the free market. But public office shouldn’t be awarded to the highest bidder or the candidate with the wealthiest investors.
Time is running out in the legislative session. The Senate needs to pass the public-financing pilot and continue to move our elections and policymaking away from the fertile ground of fundraising from investors and toward a system where ideas matter as much as special-interest dollars. That’s one clear lesson from the sorry saga of Jim Black.