A Niagara Falls of money will make 2020 the most expensive election in history, especially after the top 1% millionaires and billionaires pay back Trump and the Senate Republicans who gave them the most outrageous tax breaks in the history of the republic, swelling the national debt to an all-time high.
The New York Times reports overwhelming agreement on major issues: 92% of Americans want Medicare to negotiate drug prices, 88% want corporate money out of politics; 83% support net neutrality, 75% favor gun permits, 71% support importing drugs from Canada, 75% favor taxes on the ultrawealthy and 67% paid maternity leave. Yet, a majority of U.S. Senators could care less because they are on the leashes of big money donors.
The Political Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974 mandates reporting of political contributions. It should be called the Special Interests Payment Reporting Act. It has institutionalized big money buying extremely favorable treatment.
Couple that with the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and there is no limit to what independent expenditure committees can spend behind closed doors. Citizens United is a conservative non-profit corporation. In 2008 it wanted to run television commercials immediately before an election promoting a movie attacking Senator Hillary Clinton. It sued the Federal Election Commission to allow it to do so on First Amendment grounds.
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restricting corporate campaign contributions by Citizens United was unconstitutional because it restricts freedom of speech. According to the 5-4 majority, the First Amendment gives corporations full constitutional rights to speak and spend as they choose, without limit or restraint, and they can do so anonymously through “independent expenditure” committees.
Citizens United legalized unbridled spending by corporations to make all the rules in their favor, hiding behind secret political action committees with misleading titles, like “good government” that compound the deceit to promote corporate economic interests contrary to those of a vast number of citizens.
Citizens United, arguably one of the worse Supreme Court decisions in history, along with Plessey v. Ferguson (racial discrimination constitutional) Dred Scott (blacks cannot be citizens), was made worse by the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled that there are no limits to how much an individual can give to federal candidates in any two-year election cycle.
These policy choices by the U.S. Supreme Court promote corruption of the electoral process, allow independent expenditures committees to impact campaigns across the country and allow the 1% ruling class to effectively overrule eighty-eight percent of Americans who want Citizens United overturned.
That the Supreme Court favors the 1% ruling class dooms democracy in the United States.
