This Side of Democracy (& campaign finance reform)

[tpsbmam]

Every American has the right to speak out, to express views, and to serve as an advocate for all manner of issues and prospective leaders. But having rights doesn't necessarily mean they're valuable, or even useful at all. At times, many ordinary Americans feel as though they're just shooting blanks -- electorally speaking of course -- and with each new doubter in the process a vicious cycle ensues; the discouraged classes grow more cynical and abandon the civic process altogether, while select special interests exploit and occupy the space left behind. Campaign finance can be dry stuff, but it is ignored at one's peril, as it is the current election funding regime -- and the perverse incentives it fosters -- that undergirds much of the integrity of our entire political structure and the policies it propounds.

American democracy is in an era defined by political and economic strife, where the calls for reform are desperate and often shrill. This is of little surprise. The flaws in the system are obvious when one looks to the lukewarm reforms over the past year in health care and financial regulation, and the altogether abandoned cap and trade effort -- all of which began with lofty promises, but ultimately pleased few when codified. It is a heady experience to think what would have come to pass had reforms already been in place two years ago to dilute the codependency between lawmakers and their benefactors. Millions of individual small donors helped usher Barack Obama into the White House. What if the same could be said for the 535 esteemed members of the United States Congress?

Of course, when the many are drowned out by a plutocratic few, the answer has always been to simply pile on more regulations, only to watch the courts inexorably shoot each down. Opponents of big government stand the line against opponents of big business, with each side exchanging the same stalemated arguments of corruption in government on the one hand and free speech on the other.

The 2008 Obama campaign made unprecedented gains in activating small donor participation through new media techniques that circumvented traditional barriers. But Organizing for America remains an exception, rather than the rule. While a full third of Obama's general election contributions came from donors who gave $200 or less, for John McCain and Hillary Clinton it was but a fifth. And in 2004, for George W. Bush and John Kerry, it was only a fourth and a fifth, respectively. In the meantime, 2009 saw over 13,000 registered lobbyists swarming the nation's Capitol with a record overall expenditure of $3.5 billion.

Stuart Whatley
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-whatley/this-side-of-democracy_b_696993.html

More at link. It's well worth reading -- I had difficulty picking 4 paragraphs. The focus is on campaign finance reform and possible solutions to increasing the power of our voices to drown out corporate voices. Thought the various solutions might provide interesting fodder for debate. We see what good providing 1/3 of the Obama campaign funds did us. Would it be the same or different if that happened in Congress? We'll see if the corporations who are busy sucking up to Republicans will replace the funds he'll most likely lose from progressives -- should be interesting (and potentially depressing as hell) to watch and/or participate in the process.