The 2014 midterm election was the most expensive non-presidential election in U.S. history. The 2012 presidential election was the most expensive election in U.S. history.
We are like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day when it comes to politics. If the Constitution isn’t changed to give citizens and their elected leaders the power to make meaningful campaign finance laws again, America is doomed to repeat the same dirty process of selling our politics and our government to the highest bidder in ever-more-expensive auctions for the souls of both major parties and their elected leaders.
The final spending numbers for 2014 won’t be known for months, and some of the details will never be fully known or understood in this age of more and more secretive, “dark money” campaigning. But even the bare minimum number set by the Center for Responsive Politics just before the election is known to be a record. “Every election since 1998 has been more expensive than the one before it,” the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) said. “The 2014 election will likely follow this trend, though the total cost of $3.67 billion is only a small increase over the cost of the 2010 midterm,” the centre added. “When candidates, parties, and outside groups are taken into account, Team Red is expected to have spent $1.75 billion, while Team Blue is expected to have spent $1.64 billion.”
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Because of a number of things, the final numbers will be much higher. First, a lot of spending information isn’t made public until weeks or even months after an election. Second, as time goes on, official filings and investigative reports will show more details about how so-called “independent” and “dark money” is spent. Lastly, and most importantly, the details of how much money is being spent on state and local elections will make that $3.67 billion number go up by a huge amount. The smart people who work at CRP do research on races for the US Senate and the US House. Yet, some of the most expensive campaigns of 2014 were for governor, attorney general, and control of important legislative chambers. In 2014, spending on state and local judicial races went through the roof. And hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on initiatives and votes.
With all of this extra spending, the amount spent in 2014 will be well over $5 billion.
This spending doesn’t buy more people to vote. In 2014, the least number of people voted since 1942, when World War II made things hard.
Spending more money doesn’t lead to better debates on a wider range of issues. For example, the 2014 campaign was widely mocked as “the election about nothing.”
And it doesn’t make government better or more responsive. On the day before the 2014 election, only 8% of people approved of Congress.
This last factor is the most important. People talk a lot about how election spending affects individual races and the fight for control of Congress as a whole. However, Congressman John Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland, says that this doesn’t take into account the reality: “A lot of the moneyed impact, and in some ways the most dangerous, is on the governing that happens after.”
The Americans know this. A national Reason-Rupe poll from April 2014 found that 75 percent of Americans think that campaign donations and lobbyists “corrupt” all politicians. When the question was asked in a different way, other surveys found even more cynicism about deals between economic and political elites.
The American people also know that without the restoration of basic American values and standards when it comes to elections—based on the idea that corporations are not people, money is not speech, and votes must matter more than dollars—each new election cycle will be more expensive, more negative, and much less likely to have high voter turnouts and results that reflect the will of the vast majority of citizens.
US Senator Jon Tester, D-Montana, put it well after the 2014 election when he said, “If we don’t move quickly and forcefully to get big money out of our elections, it will give the rich a vice grip on our government.” It will make it hard for people to talk. It will also give those with the most money more confidence to keep trying to change the voters in the way they think is best. We need to do something right away.”
The most important thing is that Americans are using what they know. The secret story of the 2014 election season was that, despite all the shady fundraising and spending, there was a growing revolt at the polls.
It wasn’t about Republicans or Democrats.
It had nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.
It had to do with democracy.
In states all over the country, voters showed that they are ready to take the steps that are needed to limit the “money power” of billionaire campaign donors and corporate lobbyists in order to bring back honest debates, elections, and government.
Counties, cities, villages, and towns in Florida, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin discussed whether the US Constitution should be changed to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which removed century-old limits on how much corporations could spend to buy elections.
The request was clear and direct. Even though the questions on ballots in different parts of the country were slightly different, they all had the same message as the question that got 70 percent of the vote in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin: “Should the Constitution of the United States be changed to set up the following? 1. Only people have constitutional rights, not corporations. 2. Money is not speech, so regulating political contributions and spending is not the same as limiting political speech.
In Wisconsin, 12 communities talked about the issue, and 12 of them backed it, with support as high as 82%. Notably, people who voted for Republicans (like Governor Scott Walker, who spends a lot of money) were overwhelmingly in favour of an amendment.
In other states, it was the same. Americans backed the calls for an amendment in both red and blue areas, as well as in cities and small towns. On November 4, there were almost 30 elections in places where more than 2 million Americans live, and the message was clear. The national director of Move to Amend, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, said that almost all Americans agree that corporations shouldn’t have the same rights as people and that big money in politics should be stopped. “It’s time for Congress to pass the We the People Amendment and send it to the states to be ratified. Both parties’ leaders need to realise that their voters want this change, and we’re only going to get louder.
There are now more than 600 communities that have asked for a change.
There are 16 states now, and that number will go up.
Both the crisis and the movement to solve it are real.
Just ask Katie Schierl. She helped set up petition drives to bring the issue to the attention of people in the Wisconsin cities of Neenah and Menasha. In a region where Republicans usually win easily, 79 percent of Neenah voters supported an amendment, while 80 percent of Menasha voters did the same.
Katie Schierl, who is leading the petition drive in Neenah and Menasha, said, “We need the power of the people to change this situation.” “There’s no other way for it to happen. This movement is spreading all over the United States.