Congress is the Problem

As some have said of the Supreme Court's January 21, 2010, decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, it is clearly the worst Supreme Court judgement since Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)! The decision gives corporations the right to contribute unlimited monies to election campaigns to elect candidates who support the corporate political agenda and defeat incumbents who do not.

Understandably, many have called on Congress to reverse the decision. Some want a constitutional amendment to limit corporate campaign contributions. Any singular constitutional amendment initiated in Congress would have to institute a full public campaign finance system. Unfortunately,with the sixty-vote requirement to override a filibuster, nothing will be done. Anyway, the problem is much more than a Supreme Court decision, as destructive as it is. Congress is a failed institution, and it certainly will not reform itself.

It should be said at this point that Democrats and especially the Obama administration have bought into the filibuster scare. It allows the Democrats a handy excuse for doing nothing. And for a would-be Republican, at least a conservative at heart, Obama is apparently satisfied with the status quo. Hey, what's so terrible about letting the Republicans filibuster? They could talk themselves into a constitutional convension.

Buckley v. Valeo (1976) needs to be revisited. The decision recast congressional legislation and largely gutted the Federal Election Campaign Act and the Revenue Act--both enacted in 1971 and amended in 1974. As a consequence the 1976 Presidential election was not affected by either.

Also, how corporations initially acquired Fourteenth Amendment coverage, that corporations have the same rights as people, including First Amendment free speech rights, needs to be examined. In a preface by the Chief Justice before argument in the 1886, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., it was asserted that the entire Court was of the opinion that corporations in the case at hand had Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights--and here we are today still suffering from this absurd notion!

Citizens United merely highlights what the problem is and makes certain that it will become worse. Congress is more concerned about raising campaign funds from corporations than meeting the needs of the people the Framers intended them to represent. This is the basis for the movement to reform campaign contributions that has gotten nowhere over many years.
Congress controls the reform process; and as a consequence nothing will be done to change the status quo. In order to reform election finance, Congress has to be reformed. This can only be done through a constitutional convention.

Over the years there has been talk of a constitutional convention for revising the California State Constitution, and this has worried me because conservative Republicans were calling for it. At this writing, I am uncertain about safeguards for the State process. I have no fears for a national convention, because it only has the authority to propose amendments to the Constitution. Any proposed change needs the approval of thirty-eight states. Another way of explaining the procedure, is that any twelve states can defeat any proposal. The constitutional convention format opens debate; however, the process can be lengthy and difficult.

Campaign fundraising has been a "charged" topic for decades. No significant legislation can pass in Congress without fundamental changes in how Congress conducts its business. The McCain-Feingold Bill, at best, is a token effort, which now has been nullified by the Citizens United decision. Yet, reformists continue to look to Congress to correct the institutional corruption that steadfastly defends the status quo. It's the old fox protecting the hen house predicament, in this case, corporate monies maintaining corporate control over legislation.

Every objective observer knows that massive amounts of corporate campaign financial contributions have thoroughly distracted Congress from meeting its constitutional responsibilities to serve the needs of the people. Fundraising preoccupations and addictions have focused Congressional attention on corporate needs.

In the 2008 election cycle campaign contributions for all candidates totaled $1.686 billion. Of that total Obama received $750 million! And much of the amount came as bundled corporate contributions. With the Citizens United decision, corporations can dispense with the funding charades and make direct contributions to candidates of their choice. With corporate largess Obama is also deeply beholden to the hand that feeds. Obama's continually diminishing expectations over health care reform appear to satisfy health care industry preferences in the quid pro quo context.

Each election cycle sees dramatic increases in campaign contributions and advertising costs. The two are inseparably connected. As a rule of thumb, the candidate with the most money wins elections! In short order, a winning presidental campaign will need to spend more than one billion dollars! With Citizens United the sky is the limit; or, as Obama himself has intimated, the flood gates are opened for the easy flow of unrestricted campaign dollars. Corporate candidates will have a cakewalk!

The fundraising obsession has created an institutional corruption that not only prevents change in the way government is conducted, it has disenfranchised the electorate from the political process and from democracy itself. It's not that people are disinterested in political issues or the democratic process. People are not apathetic! They choose to avoid participating in rigged legislative and electoral procedures and practices. Cynicism arises when Congress serves corporate interests to the exclusion of general population needs. Nevertheless, faith in democratic principles and electoral politics-- that is,in Congress--can be elevated through a constitutional convention or even a threatened one.

That money buys results in Congress is universally recognized. Money certainly buys access! And access creates influence. What is most alarming is that the corruption is not hidden; it's all conducted in plain sight. It is common knowledge that Joseph Lieberman and Max Baucus receive millions of campaign dollars from the very industries that the committees they chair propose relevant legislation. No wonder confidence in Congress is lacking among the electorate and that cynicism prevails across the political spectrum. It's the cynicism that leads to voter disengagement. And then this leads to a situation where Congress, with impunity, acts only in the corporate interest.

For all the promises Obama made about changing the way Washington governs, he no longer speaks of change. His broken promises, of which there are now many, have given strength to Republicans who seek to destroy his presidency. Obama could have come out of the gates in a full-gallop toward promised changes. Instead he opted for bipartisan politics. Had he worked on his initial political capital, he could have possibly accomplished monumental change. He chose timidity and its preference for compromise.

With the vacuum in Congress and the White House, with two branches of government supine in the face of an invigorated radical Republican opposition, the reactionary and ideological Supreme Court majority has made their second destructive move, the first was Bush v. Gore (2000), to roll back democracy in the U.S.A. I am referring again to the raw, unbridled activism exhibited in the recent Citizens United decision.

There is no need to challenge that unfortunate decision directly through a constitutional amendment. Such an effort would not succeed in Congress anyway! I believe a two-thirds vote is required. As long as thirty-four Republicans stick together, a proposed constitutional amendment will not pass. Without doubt, Republicans are monolithic and indivisible, especially in a High Court decision that stands to benefit Republicans rather significantly. So, as I read the situation, the time is right for a constitutional convention movement to bring back a democratic Congress.