We Need Campaign Finance Reform. Now.
Money in politics has so significantly corrupted the integrity of our democracy that it is almost unrecognizable as such. Campaigns are too often decided by who is able to raise — and spend — the most money. Candidates and elected officials spend hours each day on call time, designated hours during which we sit and call everyone we know, and literally thousands of people we don’t, to ask if they will invest in our campaigns.
I regularly get asked on the phone why I‘m calling, for example, Massachusetts, when my district is in Illinois. And the answer is because we need a hefty budget to compete with a corporate-funded Republican, and I won’t take corporate dollars…which means I — and so many others — have to hustle, and hard. An influx of corporate money has flooded politics since 2010, when the disastrous Citizens United decision ruled that money is a form of free speech, that unlimited expenditures are permissible, and that corporations may act not as agents for a corporate agenda, but essentially as private citizens has fundamentally changed the political fundraising landscape.
Corporations are not people, but Citizens United treats them as such, to the significant detriment of the integrity of our elections.
The reliance on money in politics has costs that extend far beyond finances; time spent fundraising detracts from time that should be spent on the ground, connecting with voters and learning about the most pressing issues our constituents face. Further, the burden of fundraising, the high price tag on elections, and the impression that those two factors perpetuate a class of political elite, are sometimes insurmountable barriers to ballot access for potential candidates whose sincere desire to serve is smothered by the knowledge that elections in America are expensive and dirty.
And it doesn’t stop post-election — our representatives spend an extraordinary amount of time and energy with corporate lobbyists, who spend an extraordinary amount of money to get politicians in their pockets. That money almost always outweighs the dollars invested by individuals, and most certainly outweighs the dollars invested by constituents. Thus, we have, at best, a corporate democracy, and at worst, an oligarchy.
I support federal legislation that puts political power back where it belongs — with the people. This means putting an end to Citizens United and supporting publicly-funded campaigns. We must ban Super PACs and pass legislative measures like the DISCLOSE Act, the KOCH Act, and the Honest Ads act, which shine a light on dark money in politics and political advertising and address the influence of corporations, non-profits, and foreign interests in American elections.
The candidate with the best ideas, the strongest convictions, and the deepest commitment to the people should be elected to serve, not the candidate with the deepest pockets. We’ve permitted our elected officials to cater to their corporate donors, to whose interests too many are now beholden, rather than their constituents. That’s not democracy. It’s corruption.
I am so proud to have been endorsed by End Citizens United this cycle. There is so much to be done to protect and reshape our democracy — let’s get to work.
