Understanding Campaign Finance / Election Reform

I hope people understand that campaign finance/election reform is one of the biggest (the biggest in my opinion) issues of our time. If you've ever said they're all the same or my vote doesn't matter, and so on, without falling into false-equivalence—you're partly* right, and it's because of this.

*^{See my edit below addressing this asterisk}

There's a lot we could do in the realm of campaign finance/election reform, but the most ideal goals are:

• Reversal of Citizens United v. FEC (Corporations/Unions can donate) and SpeechNow v. FEC (these entities can donate unlimited amounts, effectively crippling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a McCain-Feingold Act) and redefining Buckley v. Valeo (Set no limit on campaign expenditures, setting a precedent to throw equality of political speech out and equating money with free-speech).

• Publicly funded elections to level the playing-field and not limit our pool of candidates to those who have deep pockets or friends with deep-pockets.

• Transition to an alternative voting system (such as IRV or Approval voting—both of which are far superior to FPTP). This allows for (1) independent tickets to run without running the risk of spoiling your vote (splitting tickets and ending up with your least-preferable candidate), (2) the victor has the largest possible majority, and (3) reduces the odds that a Gore v. Bush will repeat and someone without the popular vote will be elected. Countries like France and states like Maine employ this to great success.

• Abolition of the Electoral College

Finally, there is also the issue of gerrymandering. For addressing Gerrymandering, the most promising solution is a technical one. Computer algorithms can independently re-district locations as fairly and naturally as possible under the circumstances, all the while being overseen by an independent bipartisan committee who would intervene in exceptional cases or shortcomings of the software's redistricting algorithm.

Campaign finance/election reform also has bipartisan appeal among voters. When you look at the problems the right and left both have with government, the common denominator is money and a lack of representation. In fact, this is the easiest topic to bring people on opposite ends of the spectrum together at the same table. No other single issue transcends almost every other national issue in the U.S. Bear in mind that I am referring to the average electorate—not party officials.

Say what you will about former democratic candidate Lawrence Lessig (who? you might ask), but he was right to put his sole weight on this issue. We need more candidates willing to put this issue front & center.

So why is the system so broken and why is it so hard to change?

Big money tends to disproportionately help Republicans. As a result, they favor lax campaign finance laws. Gerrymandering is used by both parties for different reasons, but ultimately to diminish the effective representation of their opponents while artificially bolstering their own. This is counter to the interests of the American people as a whole, and serves to muddy the waters of discourse. For Democrats, it takes more money to offset this disadvantage in the wake of Citizens United and SpeechNow cases.

On the other hand, this is a way Republicans have now increased their natural advantage over Democrats. If you DON'T embrace the unleashed corporate financing of elections, then you are at a disadvantage. But if you want to play by the game in order to change the rules of the game in the end, then you'll be accused of being a hypocrite. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If there was a single issue to vote on, Campaign Finance / Election Reform would be it. And if you don't believe the severity of this issue, first watch this short video, and then watch this short video from represent.us and connect the dots.

Bonus: If you have extra time, watch this quick 10-minute video after the first two (It's a bit quirky, but has some great explanations)

Edit: I want to be clear that when I'm making this "they're all the same argument," I'm trying to thread a needle between recognizing why some people feel defeated or disenfranchised with the status-quo of government not moving fast enough or listening to them, but at the same time without claiming that "each side" is equally-wrong/right substantively. While the latter simply is not true and it would indeed be a false-equivalence to say so, I think we can indeed find common-ground among both Democrats and Republicans (citizens, not party-officials) that there exists a lack of representation. The most passionate of the left feel the factual issues they have become watered-down by centrist solutions (causing them not to function as intended in the first place), while the right-wing feel their concerns frequently aren't adequately addressed by their own party—that it's better to be in a constant state of fear/anger/scapegoating for political-expediency of party leaders than it is to attempt to actually solve the issue. There's truth to both, and the solution is found within campaign finance/election reform.

In the past when I've posted this, I've seen a pattern of responses who are trying to highlight that Democrats utilize SuperPAC money, Dark Money, etc. and claim it's equal or more than Republicans. That may or may not be true. Here's the key point that supersedes that argument*: Only the Democrats have made a concerted effort to destroy the entire process.** Republicans widely have not and in fact only widened the speech inequality. I'm not trying to be partisan in saying this; that's just a fact. So ask yourself: If (a) Democrats are indeed benefiting more or equally from this process, why would they undermine their own advantage unless they cared about fixing the system? If (b) Republicans have the advantage, then Democrats are still correct to remove this disproportionate advantage which undermines the average citizens' voice.

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FAQs

Q. Why Abolish the Electoral College? Wasn't it for helping smaller states?

A. To those arguing that this makes smaller states irrelevant, I'll explain why this is unnecessary:

The Framers already factored in the small-state disadvantage in their design of a Bicameral Congress. That is, small states have a massively disproportionate advantage of authority in the Senate.

Take the population of Wyoming — ~577,737 total residents in the state. They, like every state, get 2 Senators. In a State that has 0.177% (<--Note the decimal) of the nation's population, they get 2% (2 out of 100 Senators) of the nation's Senate power—a ~11.3:1 legislative-to-population ratio. One can see how California would be at a disadvantage with only 2 Senators, but a much larger population to represent: they have 12.8% of the nation's total population, leading to their Senator Power being: 0.16:1.

In a similar manner to the Senate, the Electoral College benefits smaller states disproportionately, giving greater "voting power" to each of its residents. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes due to its 2 Senators, and 1 House Representative. California has 55. 5.1 votes per million Wyoming citizens. California? 1.3 Electoral votes per million citizens. **If California residents had the voting-power of Wyoming residents, California would have 205 electoral votes. Add up all the small bible-belt/rust-belt states and you see why Republicans keep taking elections despite being in the minority. This is, by all accounts, minority rule.

The Electoral College only affects the election of a President, which is not state-dependent, it's national. In other words, all states are treated as one during such a popular vote for the Executive who is responsible for overseeing all states, combined. Imagine that all states are one when voting for the executive, in the same way all counties within a state have an equal say in electing a Governor:

The last two Republican Presidents won election without even obtaining the popular vote—they won despite having less individual votes than their competitor. Let that sink in.

We understand the State model is essentially a scaled-down model of the Federal model. That is:

• Presidency = Governor
• Counties = States

When a state-wide official is elected to office, be it a Governor or Senator, do we dictate the voting-weight of an individual from one county to another within a state? NO.

So why in the WORLD, when electing the "Governor for the Country" do we arbitrarily determine that the voting Power of a Montana person is more important than the voting power of a California person? This is directly defiant to everything a Democracy stands for and deeply unequal. Add up all the small-states like Wyoming or Montana, and you find enough votes to influence the outcome of an election.

In a Democracy (We are a Representative Republic, but that's still a type-of Democracy), it makes little sense that someone can win the election without earning the popular vote. Call for abolishing the Electoral College.

To close, Aaron Swartz once said, "It's not a question of Freedom of Speech, it's a question of who gets heard." When everyone has a voice but certain voices drown out the rest, does freedom of speech really matter as much as being heard? Obviously a reasonable person can infer that the spirit of freedom of speech was forged with this very thought in mind -- for what is freedom of speech but an assurance of equality against corruption or authoritarian power?