The Republican Party of Riverside County

May they rest in peace.  They are not reform.  And they have no place in American politics.  Instead, they are simply a way to allow the ‘haves’ to have more speech, and to remove the ‘have not’s’ from the process-while making the self-righteous ‘good government’ types feel good about themselves.

Now, you might think a corporate-money exclusion would benefit the ‘have not’s', but you’d be wrong.  Just about every campaign-finance law, and resulting maze of regulations, creates more and more hurdles to the public participating in the political process.

The more these laws and regulations flow down (the) Hill-like other substances-the more those below need to look out.  The insiders, however, do not.  If you think about it, you will notice that despite all the complex laws, regulations, and court rulings in this area unions and large corporations seem to keep right on participating in politics.  And that is O.K.

What is not O.K. is that the burden of ‘reform’ falls on those that cannot afford their own legal-compliance team, full-time political accountant, C.F.O., executive director, lobbyist, and P.A.C.  So, those that would simply like their voice to be heard are relegated to trying to run the gauntlet of campaign-finance law on their own (which, by design, is not possible), or risk severe penalties.

Those penalties dissuade people, and companies, from participating in the political process.  The net effect is that the big, rich, or powerful entities get (comparatively) even more ability to spend dollars-through the loopholes that their lobbyists inevitably make sure exist-to influence elections.  With less competition from other donors, the well-heeled contributors’ money is more concentrated and more coveted.

This turns the ‘reform’ attempts on their head.  While they are supposedly designed to reduce the influence of the ‘big and powerful’, they actually do the exact opposite.  If small corporations and individuals could, without fear of federal prosecution, let their voices be heard too, political leaders could be less financially dependent on-and thus less beholden to-the privileged few that have enough money for the compliance teams to ‘make it all legal.’

Fortunately, the Supreme Court took a step in the direction of letting the little guy play too.  It reduces the hurdles on political participation for everyone in two ways.  First, because most Americans own stock, most Americans have a stake in what our laws do to corporations and their profits.  And, contrary to the demagogues, most Americans benefit (whether directly or through their retirement accounts) when corporations prosper.  Therefore, they have an interest in the corporations they own letting their views be heard.

The second way is that all corporations can now contribute.  As noted, the big corporations long ago figured out a thousand ways to make political contributions to influence the outcome of elections.  But most American corporations are small, and not the sorts of companies that get labeled “Big [oil/pharma/auto/etc.]“  These are simply the ‘little guys’ who incorporated to start a business.  They are owned by entrepreneurs, and they are the main driver of our economy-yet by federal law they have been silenced.  They too can now speak more freely.

Thus, as a matter of policy, this decision is a victory.  Reducing the barriers to participation in the political process is almost always a good thing.  In fact, it is the very purpose behind much of our First Amendment.  The protection of freedom of speech-despite what 20th Century jurisprudence might lead you to believe-was not enacted by the founding generation to make sure Hugh Heffner and Larry Flint could make money.  The real purpose was to allow all citizens to let their views be heard in the political arena.  The government was not supposed to be allowed to stop us-and ‘us’ includes the companies we own, work for, and invest in-from criticizing the government.

One Congressman commented to me when McCain-Feingold was passed by Congress:  “Allowing us Congressmen to regulate expenditures in federal elections is like allowing the fox to set the rules for the hen house.”  Curiously, the McCain-Feingold’s rule had the effect of making political contributions more complicated, and making any criticism of a federal elected official more difficult-especially right before the election!

The Citizens United case is only a small, first step towards undoing years of damage to free speech, as it only directly addresses the issue of independent expenditures for corporations.  But it might also be a signal that the Court is moving in a new direction.  And that direction could send the ill-conceived McCain-Feingold-at least in part-to its rightful place in history:  extinction.

Hopefully its demise will come from the case brought by the California Republican Party, as well as the RNC and San Diego County Republican Party.  CRP Chairman Ron Nehring, RNC Chairmen Michael Steele, and SDCRP Chairman Tony Krvaric sought to litigate an “as-applied” challenge to McCain-Feingold.  As CRP Treasurer-a position that is highly burdened by the law-I happily voted for litigation because I have seen first-hand the horrible consequences, including the stifling of speech, that the law has caused as it is applied.  Another consequence is that state and county parties are restricted in working in non-federal elections.  This adds insult to injury with respect to the Founders’ intentions on speech and also federalism.