Even before it ends, this 2008 presidential campaign will transform our democracy – in fact, it already has.  Hundreds of thousands of new voters have registered and cast ballots, Sen. Barack Obama has drawn huge crowds previously reserved for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, and a surge in small donations has given the campaigns more money from more individuals than ever before at this stage – with Obama already topping 1.5 million donors.

Putting regular voters in charge of our democracy – rather than wealthy and powerful interests – has long been a goal of reformers.  Common Cause's focus over the past few years has been to enact public financing systems around the country, from Congress to states and cities, with the goal of empowering everyday citizens and the general public to provide the resources to a candidate's campaign for office.

Am I excited about this surge in small donors in the presidential primary?  Incredibly so.

Am I still concerned that wealthy, powerful interests play too large a role in politics and in funding electoral campaigns?  Absolutely.

It's not a paradox.  In part, it's a question of the presidential race versus everything else.  Once you get outside the presidential campaign, you'll find that wealthy donors (giving upwards of $1000) have increased their hold on our campaign system.  Let's look at that trend in a minute.

The presidential campaign has been funded, in almost equal parts, by small donors and large donors.  For a quick breakdown – and see this study by the Campaign Finance Institute (http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=189) and this table (http://www.cfinst.org/president/pdf/Pres08_M4_Table2.pdf) for more details – Obama has received 45% from small donors ($200 and below) and 37% from large donors ($1000 and up), with the rest falling in the middle range of $201-$999. Sen. Hillary Clinton's finances break down to 30% from small donors and 55% from large donors.  Sen. John McCain stands at 23% small and 63% large.  The small donor trend has been partly mitigated by greater giving overall, including large donors, although the past few months have been dominated by small donors on the Democratic side (http://www.cfinst.org/president/pdf/Pres08_M4_Table1.pdf).

What's the advantage of small donors?  For the campaigns, they are relatively low-overhead – many come from online lists and from candidate events, which the campaigns would hold anyway – and the small donors tend to be an important source of activists.  This is, of course, great for the democratic process in general: political giving often leads to greater civic and political participation and investment.  And of course, small donor dollars don't give the impression that they're trying to buy undue influence with the campaign.

But races for Congress, unlike the Presidency, do not typically generate the same energy, the same buzz, and the same wall-to-wall media coverage.  Not surprisingly, the trend in Congress is moving in the opposite direction: (http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=151)

House and Senate candidates have raised 80 percent more money in contributions of $1,000 or more in the years after BCRA [since 2002] than before while small contributions over the same time period have actually declined. As a percentage of total receipts, House and Senate candidates raised half again as much money in amounts of $1,000 or more after BCRA.

 
Large donors have increased their influence in congressional races, making the notion of a major "change in Washington" hard to imagine without a significant shift to small donors and public funding as a source for candidates' campaign chests.

Indeed, the "Clean Elections" model being used in several states and cities does exactly that: candidates who raise enough small contributions (typically $5-10) to reach a threshold level of support, and who also agree to abide by spending limits and to stop raising additional private contributions, receive public funding to run their campaign.  Those candidates are eligible for additional public matching funds if they're being outspent by a privately-financed opponent.

The Fair Elections Now Act, introduced in the Senate by Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), and soon to be introduced in the House, would create a "Clean Elections" system for Congress.  It's a critical change given the trend against small donors in congressional races.

At the end of this presidential election, we'll want to take a close look at the role small donors played in that race as well.   We'll want to construct a public financing system for the presidential race that embraces and promotes a small donor strategy and limits the influence of wealthy campaign contributors.  Capitalizing on the energy of this presidential race to further change the way we finance elections in this country – from top to bottom – would be a welcome democratic reform.

It was fitting that the US House approved late on the night of March 11 the creation of an independent, outside panel to enforce ethics rules, as you would have thought from listening to the debate that that lawmakers were talking about a nightmare.

Here is Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS): "If you have a single ounce of self-preservation, you'll vote no."

Or, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI): "Any referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics will be tantamount to a guilty verdict. Any other conclusion by the ethics committee will be seen as a cover-up. I guarantee it."

In reality, Tiahrt and Abercrombie were talking about the creation of a new independent, bipartisan panel of non-lawmakers to monitor and enforce ethics in the US House. It will be known as the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). The House took the huge step last month of approving the panel by a vote of 229 to 182, and it is one of the most significant ethics reforms in a generation.

Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) are faced with the task of jointly appointing six people to the OCE. Those appointments are likely to make the panel as good or bad as party leaders want it to be.

Objective, reasonable appointees with respect for the institution of the US House can shield members from frivolous, politically motivated ethics complaints, which is the fear of many critics of this panel. If the parties appoint political hacks with an axe to grind, members will become the victims.

This ethics enforcement panel has the power to initiate and conduct investigations even without the support of a majority of commissioners. It was designed to deny veto power to either party. The danger, of course, is that no one could stop the commissioners of one party from routinely engaging in politically driven fishing expeditions and then publicly releasing their findings.

Surely it has occurred to opponents of the OCE that appointing operatives with a demonstrated interest in political mudslinging would go a long way toward destroying it.

The logic of having private citizens as part of the ethics process is not lost on the American public. One of the criticisms of Congress has been that it is only interested in protecting its own. A cynical attempt to install partisan hacks in the independent panel would not fool the public either. Neither would endless foot-dragging.

Outside groups cannot file ethics complaints to the new OCE, only members can. And at least members of the outside panel would not be asked to investigate their colleagues higher up the party ladder who control their political future. The central problem with the House Ethics Committee is how hopelessly conflicted the process is.

It is gospel that corruption was one of the biggest reasons the Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate in 2006. Dozens of newspapers, big and small, have editorialized about the benefit of independent ethics oversight and praised the creation of the OCE. The leadership of either party should not underestimate the public's understanding and attention to this issue. It is an election year.

Spreading the Wealth

As the president of Common Cause, I have a deep interest in the features of our democracy that make it more or less responsive to the public. But I also have a long professional commitment to poverty eradication – particularly ending the poverty that kills.

So I want to look at the ways these two issues connect – how features of our political system contribute to the problem of poverty in this country.

As you know, the United States is not an equal society. By historical standards and as compared to other industrialized nations, the United States has an exceptionally high level of economic inequality.  America has enjoyed a profound increase in productivity and wealth during the last three decades – through innovations like the internet and our increasingly globalized economy. Yet, as our economy has grown our government has slowly abandoned the policies aimed at providing economic opportunity and mobility for those who need it the most.

As we all know, most Americans will accept a degree of economic inequality, but political inequality is a different matter. In fact, the notion that all Americans should be “considered as political equals” goes to the heart of our national identity. The danger is that this growing economic inequality in America will lead to corresponding political inequality.

This is the unfortunate reality in America, and one we need to fix. Public policies in a variety of areas are actively contributing to the deepening division of our society, economically and politically, between the haves and have-nots. A wealth of research and scholarship shows the disparity that exists between the levels of responsiveness of our democratic system to the preferences of different economic classes.

Why?

Let me first say that it is not unreasonable to expect elected officials to be more responsive to individuals or groups that are politically active versus those who are not. Political activity and participation can be measured in a variety of ways in our political system. The most basic, of course, is voting. Not surprisingly, voting rates steadily decline as incomes decline. “Nearly nine out of 10 individuals in families with incomes over $75,000 reported voting in presidential elections while only half of those in families with incomes under $15,000 reported voting,” reports to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But that’s not the whole story. According to American Political Science Association (http://www.apsanet.org/section_256.cfm), “only 12 percent of American households had incomes over $100,000 in 2000, but 95 percent of the donors who made substantial contributions were from these wealthiest households.” According to the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org), only 0.35 percent of adults in the U.S. gave more than $200 to a political candidate in 2006. And only 0.08 percent of adults gave more than $2,000. Obviously, only individuals at the upper end of the income distribution can afford to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a political contribution.

Unfortunately, in the U.S., effective political activism means having the disposable income to make political contributions most families cannot afford. It also gives a disproportionate amount of power to special interest groups with the resources to make large contributions every year.

The result is a feedback loop whereby the preferences of the lower- and even middle-income groups are not reflected in public policy, leading to disillusionment with our political system.  This disillusionment helps explain the lower voting rates at the bottom of the economic ladder, further tipping the scales in favor of the wealthy.

While there is no silver bullet that will solve the problems of economic and political inequality in this country, it seems clear that there is room for improvement in our political system with regard to its responsiveness to the preferences of low- and middle-income Americans.

Moreover, it is not unreasonable to think that if our political system did not require political contributions from individuals and special interests, but instead publicly financed elections, elected members would be more responsive to the preferences of low- and middle-income Americans who cannot afford to make large political contributions. Nor is it unreasonable to think that if this system had been in place for the last thirty years, the U.S. would not be as economically and politically unequal as it is today.

By Bob Edgar  

Clumsy deceptions, misrepresentations and outright lies -- that is what President Pervez Musharraf has steadily delivered in exchange for the $10 billion dollars in U.S. military aid he has received since Sept. 11, 2001.

In return for his autocratic behavior and failed efforts at curtailing Islamic military extremism, he has received the unwavering public accolades of the U.S. Administration.   Our government has put hope ahead of reason and consistently refused to respond to the reality of the often reckless behavior of a quasi-military dictator. What price do we pay when we put perceived political expediencies ahead of our own democratic ideals in conducting our foreign policy? What will be the long term effect of the development of the civil society in Pakistan and how will it view our continued support for an obviously flawed leader? And what is our responsibility as civil society leaders in the United States to support the efforts of our Pakistani colleagues and call our own government out on its flawed policies?

As a former Member of Congress and leader of several peace missions to the Middle East and elsewhere, I know there are often tough choices to make in the foreign policy arena. But over time the current leadership in Pakistan has made the calculus easier and easier to cipher. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, it’s time we call the doctor.

What is Musharraf’s track record to date?

And how are we to view the recent tragedy of the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Butto and the rescheduling of the upcoming elections? How gullible should we and the Pakistani people be when we know that Musharraf refused to provide Bhutto with adequate security after repeatedly being asked to do so; insisted that Butto died from hitting her head on her vehicle’s sunroof when footage clearly shows she died of gunshots; seized her medical records from the hospital that treated her and lastly ignored calls to keep the Jan. 8 election date despite Pakistani and world opinion.  

• U.S. intelligence sources report that Al Qaeda has reconstituted in tribal areas within Pakistani territory and are stronger than ever.  
• The Taliban and other Islamic extremists have grown in strength and Musharraf has proven unable to diffuse the situation, in part because elements in his own military are supportive of them.
• The New York Times revealed last week that at least $5 billion in U.S. aid delivered to Pakistan since 9/11 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban actually went into weapons systems against another U.S. ally, India.
• The removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry last March for political reasons.
• The imposition of martial law in November, suspension of the 1973 constitution, the jailing of civil rights leaders, lawyers and judges, and the curbs on electronic and print media. All initiated without any consultation or notice to allies in the United States.

The disclosure that Benazir Bhutto had been preparing to show two visiting U.S. lawmakers evidence that the Election Commission and Pakistan's most powerful security organ were planning to rig the election ought to sound the alarm. Especially when recent polls show that the Pakistan Peoples Party would win in a landslide.  

It’s time for Common Cause members and US civil society leaders to stand up and speak the truth. Instead of praising Musharraf, President Bush and the American people should tell him that we will no longer tolerate his obvious lies. Blind support of President Musharraf stains our conscience, impedes the work of civil society leaders in Pakistan, and damages our reputation and our ideals.

To learn more, please email Lauren Coletta at lcoletta@commoncause.org. 

 

Congress must continue to push for answers to questions regarding the involvement of top presidential advisors in the firings of at least nine US attorneys last year.

Both the House and Senate are inching toward a showdown with the White House over whether current and former presidential aides, including President Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua Bolten and former advisor Karl Rove, should have to comply with congressional subpoenas. 

On Nov. 29, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) took a next step toward seeking to enforce the subpoenas in court. He formally ruled illegal President Bush’s claim of executive privilege for his aides. The House has also taken steps to force a confrontation with the White House that could require the intervention of the new attorney general, Michael Mukasey.

It’s not clear what happens next. But what is clear is that Congress must exercise its constitutional responsibilities to stand up to the President.

The former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, the man ultimately responsible for the US attorney firings and more importantly, the politicization of the Justice Department, lost his job over this mess. But the American public deserves to know who in the White House and to what extent were they involved in the decisions to fire the prosecutors for apparently refusing to succumb to partisan political pressure.

The entire episode is a blow to the integrity and credibility of our criminal-justice system, which must provide equal justice for all. And it comes at a time of corrosive public cynicism and distrust of government that has been fueled by recent political scandals. A failure of Congress to investigate and disclose to the American people will only exacerbate those feelings.

The Justice Department and our U.S. attorneys have a long history of nonpartisanship and of enforcing the nation's laws in a fair manner. That reputation has been tarnished and must be restored. Gonzales is gone, and that is the first step toward restoring credibility. But only by disclosing the full truth about the role that the White House played in this episode will the integrity of the Justice Department be fully restored.

Congress must demand that the presidential aides who are being asked to testify do just that.

One year from now, we’ll be at the climax of the longest and most expensive federal campaign cycles in history, looking in our national rearview mirror at a $1 billion presidential race and another $1 billion spent on races for the House and Senate.

One billion dollars.  The vast majority of it will come from wealthy donors writing large checks, no doubt demanding access to and influence on the winners once they sit behind their desks in Congress, or in the Oval Office. And who will say no to them? Those newly re-elected or newly elected lawmakers will already be worried about finding money to run their next campaign. That is how the fundraising arms race works.

Put all that fundraising activity against the backdrop of our national needs.

We need a solution to the health care crisis, a plan to address global warming, an honest debate on our foreign policy, and much more. The last thing we should have is members of Congress spending more than 30 percent of their time and energy fundraising. I’m not interested in watching another year of endless political money raising, as average voters feel further alienated from their own democratic government.

We need to Get it Straight in 2008. We won’t be able to address health care or global warming without removing the influence of big money in politics. So that’s what we must do. Public financing of campaigns, or "Fair Elections," allows candidates who show a broad base of public support to receive public funding to run a competitive campaign. Once in office, those same candidates feel accountable to the voters of their district, not their major donors. Imagine electing our legislators based on ideas and appeal to voters, rather than on who can raise the most money. That’s not a bad picture.

Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut already use voluntary, full public financing systems for all of their statewide races. But to Get it Straight in 2008 we can’t stop there. We need to change the way we finance campaigns across this country, from cities to states to Congress, where the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act was introduced this year by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA).

Just over a week from now, Nov. 12-16, is Fair Elections Action Week, when people and organizations from around the country that support public financing will take actions to show their support for this ultimate campaign finance reform.

If you agree we need action on health care, global warning, education and other critical issues, please join us in showing you want a change. Join the campaign to make Fair Elections Action Week a step toward a fairer democracy in which all voters—regardless of the size of their wallets—have an equal voice. You can simply sign your name in support, or choose an activity that will be going on somewhere near you to show your support.

 

It didn’t exactly make big headlines, but the US Senate last week took what could be a significant step toward addressing the alleged mismanagement, fraud and cronyism that appears rampant around contracting and the Iraq War.

 The Senate unanimously approved a provision sponsored by U.S. Senators Jim Webb (D-VA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and their seven Senate Democratic freshman colleagues to establish an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate U.S. wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 The proposed commission would assess the extent of fraud, mismanagement, waste and misuse associated with military contracts as well as the policies, procedures, processes and performance of those contracts. The commission could also help answer critical questions about the advisability of the move to increasingly depend on civilian contractors hired to perform wartime functions.

  The New York Times recently reported that $6 billion in military contracts to provide food water and shelter to American troops was under review by criminal investigators. An additional $88 billion in contracts are being audited for financial irregularities. And in 2005, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) found that nearly $9 billion in funds for Iraq was unaccounted

 In addition, federal prosecutors are reportedly investigating charges that a private American security firm operating in Iraq, Blackwater USA, smuggled weapons into Iraq and sold them to groups designated by the United States as terrorist organizations. Blackwater personnel are also under investigation for a shootout that resulted in the death of 11 Iraqis.

 This alleged behavior by an American contractor, and the astounding lack of accountability for billions of taxpayer dollars on the part of the Pentagon has outraged the public. Now Congress seems to be noticing. A similar bill has been introduced in the US House, and Common Cause and other watchdog groups that support the proposal will continue to watch and push for passage.

 It is long past time to establish this commission that will significantly increase transparency and accountability, and address longstanding, systemic problems with defense contracting by studying and investigating the impact of the government’s growing reliance on civilian contractors to perform wartime functions.

 We will be watching.

The U.S. Senate was designed by the Founding Fathers to ensure thorough deliberation of the important issues facing the country. The Senate is known for its lengthy debates on the issues of the day.

 

So, it was puzzling and disturbing several days ago when the Senate took up an important voting rights legislation, the DC House Voting Rights Act, and with virtually no debate, cut off consideration of the bill. The bill would give the citizens of the District Columbia voting representation in the U.S. House of Representative. As Senator Orrin Hatch said, “My gosh, when has the Senate been afraid to debate a constitutional issue as important as this one?”

 

Why has the Senate failed to pass, or even consider, legislation specifically designed to address an injustice while avoiding partisan division? 

 

Some Senators opposing the bill declare their support for the voting rights of DC but hold up their copies of the Constitution and declare that they cannot vote for a bill they consider unconstitutional. Never mind that conservative legal experts such as Kenneth Starr and Viet Dinh have testified to its constitutionality. And never mind that many of these same Senators have voted for bills of highly questionable constitutionality.

The truth is that many Senators, like most Americans, are ill-informed and even contemptuous of the city that is the nation’s capital. They seem unaware or willfully ignorant that District of Columbia residents pay federal income taxes, serve on juries, and die in wars to defend American democracy.

 

But we will overcome those who use the Constitution to argue against voting rights for the more than half million Americans who live in DC.   As my friend Wade Henderson noted on this blog the other day, “it is important that we understand that the bill’s delay in the Senate was not on its merits.” This bill passed the House overwhelmingly and has the support of a significant majority in the Senate. On the cloture vote, eight Republicans defied their leadership and voted to end the filibuster. On a straight up or down vote on its merits, this bill would pass easily.

 

Common Cause has worked long and hard for the democratic rights of the citizens of DC. We know that the vote last Tuesday was only the latest obstacle in this struggle. With our allies at DC Vote, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and many other groups, we will not give up until this Congress brings justice to the District of Columbia.