by Jack Lee
It takes boat loads of money to win a federal election these days – most notable of these elections is the presidency – and concerned people in both parties, now say elections costs are out of control.
Consider that the Clinton – Dole campaigns spent about $232 million in the 96 cycle – supplemented by about $69 million in ads by the Republican and Democratic national committees. Across the country, Election ’96 cost about $2.7 billion. However, by 2008 it has risen to roughly $5.4 billion! What the heck happened, inflation during those years only totaled about 23%. Why have the costs increased so much? Something is very wrong and it does not bode well for future elections because big money is cutting down the field of potential candidates to only an elite few..
Money matters too much! Did you know that 93% of the House of Representatives races and 94% of the Senate races were won by the candidate who spent the most money? (Source for Responsive Politics.) The findings are based on candidates’ spending as reported to the FEC.
Now please don’t confuse apples to oranges here. Just because something is taxed doesn’t mean it automatically has a right to vote or that it should be able to give big campaign donations. A corporation has employees and they all have a vote. They can represent their interests just fine, but for them to leverage off the fact they work for a large corporate with deep pockets it should not empower their voice or their value more than any other individual voice. All unions, corporations, big oil, or whatever else, should be outside our political process when it comes to our final election cycle. This period of a few months should just be for individuals and the candidates. The aforementioned unions, corporations, etc., can have their free speech, but not to degree they define a public election. That would be a very dangerous practice that would lead to bad laws and corrupt legislators. (history says so)
In 1996 the average cost of winning a House seat was $675,000 and a Senate seat cost nearly $3,765,000 in 1996. Now the average cost of winning a House race is nearly $1.2 million, based on pre-election finance reports, and almost $6.7 million for a Senate seat. Do you want to see these elections increasing 200-250% every 10-12 years? Because that kind of money won’t be coming from the average voter, it will be coming from big Oil, Unions, PACs, corporations and Wall Street. Are these the sources you want deciding future elections?
In congressional campaigns, the amounts are smaller, but money still plays a big role. Big coffers scare away challengers and it limits the field of choices you might otherwise have; and we know advertising can swing races leaving your vote less valuable than ever. As a result, members of Congress spend a whole lot of time, energy – and money – raising funds for their next election, in fact fund raising while in Congress never stops and that’s not just wrong, it’s dangerous. The desperate need to raise money to stay in office should not be such a big temptation…this is formula for corruption and disaster.
As this campaign spending escalates, and it appears to be escalating without any end in sight, you have to ask yourself, are these candidates really just trying to get their message out (free speech) or is this more about trying to overwhelm the opponent and let money determine the winner, not their ideas and not their values?
Over time fund rasing for election has evolved so that the first priority of those in the House and Senate is never ending. It goes on their whole time in office. Being a legislator is their second priority and who thinks this is really okay?
According to the latest Supreme Court ruling on who can contribute and how much, the flood gates for money have been turned wide open. This is a scary situation because we all know that money equals power and power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; this is not the path we to take this nation down, the keyword being…down!
Do you think the latest Supreme Court decision opening up corporate contributions was a coincidence and that it had nothing to do with the difficulty the GOP had in fund raising during the last election cycle (they lost)? That 5/4 decision was right down partisan lines and this should concern you as much as the runaway spending, this is what the need for money has done, not eithical juris prudence.
Common sense says – where money is so critical and necessary for a politician, can corruption ever be that far behind?
When do we say enough is enough and this dangerous and runaway spending should stop? The people said it was enough when they voted in Prop 208 in Calif., unfortunately it was sued to death by both our big parties.
To our North, the Canadian national election spent a mere $300 million. And Canadians do not see themselves as being deprived of free speech! Not at all. In fact the Canadian voter turn out was higher than the more costly U.S. election. Canada’s voter turn out was considered compared to past elections! The nexus between honoring money as just another form of free speech is more fiction than reality. In fact we’ve seen too many elections where free speech was overwhelmed and shouted down by big money dominating the ads and this denied the free speech of candidates who were denied their campaign ads because they were sold out to the competitor.
We have to start thinking it through people and do the right thing – do what must be done. This is the only the way we will ever return control of our election process to honest individuals with high morals and good ideas, people who are uncorrupted by the money addiction so prevelant in our two main political parties.