Speaking without One Voice

The Supreme Court (Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission) seemed to open the Pandora’s box by declaring that corporations and unions are “persons” entitled to First Amendment rights to free speech, allowing virtually unlimited spending to support back-door campaigning under guise of so-call political action committees (PACs, and the really big ones are called super-PACs). True, candidates cannot directly solicit campaign contributions through these PACs without running afoul of limitations placed on candidates, and the question is still unresolved as to whether the underlying institutions and donors can be compelled to be disclosed, but Citizens United seems to tilt the political powerbase in the United States toward the well-heeled elites able to support such massive funding requirements… at the expense of the average voter.

Indeed, this fear seems to have become a reality, and catchy slogans and simplistic solutions – generally involving not taxing the rich and eliminating watchdog regulations from peering into and regulating their businesses (from environment to financial matters) – have become de rigueur of late. The vast majority of these super-PACs have found entry to the Republican side of the equation (although unions and liberal billionaires have had a few of their own in support of Democratic candidates and issues): “[A]s 2012 approaches, the [conservative] groups — among them the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, the American Action Network and Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers — have gathered into a loosely organized political machine poised to rival, and in many ways supplant, the official Republican Party apparatus.” New York Times, October 24^th.

Unfortunately for party planners, trying to stress a more unified voice even as Republican candidates slice and dice each other up in debates and in their own campaign rhetoric, the sheer size of some of these well-funded super-PACs has created voices with almost as much force as a more centralized Republican message. Without actually be required to identify their underlying support, to average voters, these do seem like official policy releases by the Republican Party itself, even if their messages have not been approved or even indirectly sanctioned by the party.

For example, “[a]t a time when the Republican presidential primary race has featured increasingly tough stances against illegal immigration, the independent groups have begun an aggressive program of outreach to Hispanics, hoping to offset Democratic gains among a critical voting bloc… Such heightened coordination is the latest development in the growing role of the outside groups, which operate free of many of the legal restrictions that govern the official parties… Like the party committees they are rapidly coming to eclipse, the independent groups are financed by some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors and operated by some of its most respected operatives and strategists. But thanks to the Citizens United decision, the independent groups can raise money in unlimited amounts and with negligible overhead. Much of the money will be spent through not-for-profit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.

“Most of the groups answer only to a few dozen deep-pocketed donors, rather than the elected officials who oversee traditional party efforts. Yet if they lack some of the accountability imposed on the parties by campaign finance regulations and the ballot box, the groups also represent a marked shift from earlier generations of conservative-leaning groups, many of which were advocates for particular industries or policies or sought a shift in the ideological balance of their party.” NY Times.

Party leaders also realize how much money can be saved by letting these PACs dominate the media, a fact that has the media salivating at the potential advertising spend. So to the extent that efforts can be coordinated, the GOP is more than happy to share: “One major innovation this election cycle will be the outsourcing of the Republican Party’s voter list, its most valuable asset but one that is enormously expensive to keep current. In August, the Republican National Committee signed a contract to let the Data Trust, a new outside group run by the committee’s former chief of staff, manage the database… Data Trust will be allowed to swap the list with other outside groups, which can use money raised outside federal contribution limits to update it. Under current law, the improved list can then be used by the Republican National Committee, potentially saving the party millions of dollars.

“But the plan — and the broader implications of outsourcing so much traditional party work — has also riled some Republicans, who say it weakens the party as an institution. ‘Every time we empower independent third-party groups to do what the party is supposed to be doing, it diminishes the value of the brand and what the party represents,’ said Gary Emineth, a former chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, who fought against the Data Trust agreement.” NY Times. For candidates with differing agendas, however, maintaining what they believe in when contradicted by massive PAC campaigns with a different message is almost impossible. They seem out-of-step with the sweeping tides. And since the overwhelming money is coming from the nation’s most conservative contributors, the very notion of a moderate Republican candidate appears to be nothing more than an unsustainable wish.

Healthy debate among conservatives, moderates and liberals is the American way, but increasingly the voices of a few have been deemed to be more important than the open balance that made America the greatest democracy of them all. But if you really want to see what happens when that balance is no longer possible, take a good hard look at the impasses that mark the most polarized and dysfunctional House of Representatives since the Civil War. We should be striving for free and open debate without giving all the trump cards to our nation’s richest, and often most opinionated, elites, whether Republicans or Democrats. What happened to Middle America? Or is this just one more sign of the erosion and collapse of our middle class?

I’m Peter Dekom, and freedom is a precious commodity that can vaporize by taking it for granted.