I've recently tried to understand who funds the elections of my elected official. I immediately ended up on something like OpenSecrets.org or sites that feed basically off the same data (which in the end comes from FEC and you can download in the raw.)
You go on OpenSecrets and discover a list of corporations that are supposedly funding your official. The problem with this data is that if I was to independently make a donation right now, it would be attributed to my EMPLOYER by OpenSecrets and every other such site out there.
In reality, by law, corporations CANNOT contribute to campaigns directly. They can establish one single PAC, which has a limit of several thousand dollars or something like that, but thats that. Hardly the millions in direct contributions that we hear about.
If you download the raw data from the FEC -- which I did -- what you see is thousands of small donations, subject to the same limits as set by law ($2,300 I believe), coming from individuals. How can you possibly attribute these contributions to their employers and claim that a particular corporation is influencing the official through campaign money?
I really really want to understand how a corporation gets from point A (we want to give a million dollars to this guy) to point B (he actually gets it regardless of the limits set by law). I am very frustrated by not being able to "follow the money" from the raw data coming from the FEC. Would somebody please offer an explanation? Why should I blindly believe that Mega Corp USA is influencing my official through campaign contributions? Where's the proof?!
I don't think it's possible for the FEC to collect data on all the ways corporate money can influence an election.
I agree that I would like to hear more about the logistics of how corporate money is translated into influence.
One argument is that the election itself doesn't really matter that much. Access to elected officials matters more: thus the economy of lobbying in DC. Lobbyists are former congressmen or staffers who can use their connections to influence existing legislation.
You may argue that lobbyists have no influence, but given the number of representatives and staffers that work on the contents of each thousand page bill, it's hard to imagine that they truly have ZERO influence. Once you've established nonzero influence, it's just a matter of hiring enough lobbyists to get some desired change.
I do think that lobbying has a profound effect in Congress. However, lobbying is something that you can do as an individual by joining a special interests group and visiting your officials. In other words, investing your time where corporations invest their money. Not terribly unfair if you think about it.
The speaker in the linked presentation and the organization he represents -- not to mention that it's popular belief -- claim that lobbyists are the ones funding the same officials' campaigns. As far as I can tell there is no data that supports this claim.
Fair Elections Now Act is the speaker's proposed reform.
"Under this legislation, congressional candidates who raise a threshold number of small-dollar donations would qualify for a chunk of funding—several hundred thousand dollars for House, millions for many Senate races. If they accept this funding, they can’t raise big-dollar donations. But they can raise contributions up to $100, which would be matched four to one by a central fund. Reduced fees for TV airtime is also an element of this bill, creating an incentive for politicians to opt into this system and run people-powered campaigns."
So lower the limit of per person donations and match whatever they collect with tax payer money. What problem would that solve exactly and what does it have to do with corporate money when they can't make contributions in the first place?
That is a good point, if all the contributions are funneled through individuals anyway, what good does the limit serve?
My guess is that the standard method for contributing, say 240,000 is to hire 100 lobbyists, each of whom contribute the individual max (and take a cut as their lobbyist salary.) Certainly seems like it should be illegal, but I'm not sure it is. Limiting contributions would make that harder, as you'd have to hire 25 times as many lobbyists, but certainly not impossible.
My guess is this is Lessig's compromise, considering the free speech guarantees corporations enjoy. I'm sure he'd rather use more direct methods for blocking corporate influence if he didn't think the court would overrule it.
Hiring someone just to make contributions in the name of your corp would be illegal, because that's using your company's treasury to make contributions to campaigns, which is explicitly forbidden by existing law.
No matter how long I stare at this I just don't see how corporations are contributing to campaigns beyond what is allowed by the PAC limit (which is a tiny sum.)
This lack of data on the part of the speaker and lack of understanding on my part, prevents me from believing that corporations are the puppet masters of Congress. In a sense it's self evident, but I can't bring myself to blindly blame it on campaign money. I want to be sure of the cause so I don't, as the speaker ironically puts it, end up "hacking at the branches."
If you want to, I'd love to move this to email, as I would love to get to the bottom of it, and you've already pointed out gaps in my understanding of the problem.
I can't find any language that expressly prohibits hiring lobbyists to make donations, and I'm not sure how enforceable such a law would be. Are you referring to chapter 2, section 6, "General Treasury Funds"?
You go on OpenSecrets and discover a list of corporations that are supposedly funding your official. The problem with this data is that if I was to independently make a donation right now, it would be attributed to my EMPLOYER by OpenSecrets and every other such site out there.
In reality, by law, corporations CANNOT contribute to campaigns directly. They can establish one single PAC, which has a limit of several thousand dollars or something like that, but thats that. Hardly the millions in direct contributions that we hear about.
If you download the raw data from the FEC -- which I did -- what you see is thousands of small donations, subject to the same limits as set by law ($2,300 I believe), coming from individuals. How can you possibly attribute these contributions to their employers and claim that a particular corporation is influencing the official through campaign money?
I really really want to understand how a corporation gets from point A (we want to give a million dollars to this guy) to point B (he actually gets it regardless of the limits set by law). I am very frustrated by not being able to "follow the money" from the raw data coming from the FEC. Would somebody please offer an explanation? Why should I blindly believe that Mega Corp USA is influencing my official through campaign contributions? Where's the proof?!
EDIT: Quick search turns up what I mean about the data: http://www.delawarepolitics.net/misusing-opensecretsorg/