American Politics. Campaign Finance Reform in California 2000-2016

Campaign Finance Reform in California 2000-2016
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Campaign Finance Reform in California 2000-2016
Introduction
The very definition of democracy is ‘government of the people by the people for the people,’ but monies involved in campaigns which is the most important element of democracy threatens it. The American political system has been heavily infested by ‘dark money’ (even from foreign sources), and it has threatened the stability of democracy CITATION Jos18 \l 1033 (Biden & Carpenter, 2018). The American Political landscape has slowly been becoming an oligarchy as only the wealthy individuals, and special interest groups have vested interest in the representation in government and influence legislation to be made in their favor. The major campaign financiers and special interest groups have heavily lobbied for different legislations in their favor in a bid to maximize their profits or expand their influence and spread their ideologies and philosophical beliefs CITATION Geo16 \l 1033 (Rennie, 2016). The elected representatives no longer represent the will of the people but of their campaign financiers. America has legalized this corruption and rebranded it lobbying which is far from the spirit of democracy. There are other democracies around the world (such as Switzerland) with near perfect representation without special interests by several individuals and or organizations, and they are performing very well. The dark monies poured into American politics have weakened our democracy in the recent past, and new legal framework is necessary to save our democracy from itself.
Brief History of Election Laws on Campaign Financing in American politics
The American political landscape, especially the electioneering process has always been heavily influenced by private and corporate donations to the candidates since the early 19th century. Through the 19th century, the democratic process of electing representatives to the government continually inclined towards the candidates with stronger support by corporates who could donate more monies to their campaigns. In the early 20th century, the Tilman Act of 1907 was passed that prohibited corporations and nationally chartered (interstate) banks from making direct financial contributions to federal candidates CITATION Sit02 \l 1033 (Sitkoff, 2002). Though the bill was well-intended, weak enforcement rendered it ineffective. Throughout the century, more legislations were passed which were intended to enforce anti-trust measures in the electioneering process. The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, amendment of the Hatch Act of 1939, the Smith-Connally Act of 1943 and Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 were passed in the first half of 20th century to address the evolving system of interest individuals and organizations in politics. Most of the legislation were expanding the framework of existing laws since the interest individuals were increasingly finding new ways to navigate the existing laws and or using new front groups to fund election campaigns CITATION Ric10 \l 1033 (Hasen, 2010). For example, the Taft-Harley Act extended the corporate ban on election campaign donations to labor unions.
In the latter period of the 20th century, the toxicity of American politics increased and epitomized by the Watergate scandal. A new federal law was enacted, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 which stymied most of the subversion of the electorate’s will in representation. However, in 1976, some limitations of the bill were struck down by the SCOTUS as unconstitutional and were possibly violating the civil liberties ingrained in the constitution and created new loopholes for exploitation by the politicians and their clout to sustain the status quo. In 2002, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) was passed and signed into law by President Bush, though he expressed concerns about its constitutionality and efficacy CITATION Kel02 \l 1033 (Wallace, 2002). Several litigations on the bill were filed in the supreme court in which the court at first upheld its key provisions in 2003 in the case McConnell v. FEC. However, in the case Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. The law suffered a setback. In 2010, the Disclose Act, which was designed to enact most of the provisions in the California Finance Reform was proposed, but it failed in the Senate by a single vote. The system has evolved and changed in modes of operations to navigate legal restrictions and continued to affect the will of the people adversely.
Summary of the legislation
The bill sought to coerce special interest groups to publish any information related to financing or campaigning for their favorite candidate in the best interest of Californians. One of the authors of the bill Kevin Mullin said, ‘No more fine print’ referring to the often-exploited legal loopholes that these organizations declare their involvement in the campaigns, but write it down in fine print such that the information is not widely publicized CITATION Tar171 \l 1033 (Luna, 2017). Mullin also added “California voters will now be able to make informed decisions, based on honest information about who the true funders are of campaign ads. This transparency is critical to our democracy, and I am proud that California has taken this historic first step to shine the light on “dark money” CITATION Tar171 \l 1033 (Luna, 2017). The bill also necessitates the campaigners and candidates to publish information on ‘ballot measure ads and independent expenditure ads for or against candidates to clearly and prominently disclose the identity of their top three funders, and includes first-in-the-nation follow-the-money rules to make ballot measure ads show their true funders.’ This is meant to ensure that the people are well informed on the main financiers of the candidates and can uncover if they are special interest groups or not. The goal is to inform the public exhaustively on any dollar spent on the campaign trail of its source and let the electorate figure out if there are special interests from these organizations.
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