I do not know the cure for corruption either here in Illinois or in New York State. I tend to agree with the editors of the Wall Street Journal to the extent that I don’t think there is a permanent solution:
Conservatives understand that there is no “permanent solution†to political corruption, which is rooted in the human temptation to abuse government power. The surest way to guarantee more corruption is to insulate politicians from accountability. The solution is checks and balances, which should include the ability of citizens to spend as much money as they want to unseat politicians—corrupt or not.
but that’s not nearly enough. We need two competitive political parties with the emphasis on “competitive”. That means an end to gerrymandering and brand name voting. Republicans must expand their appeal by shedding the image of bigotry and proposing solutions other than cutting taxes. Democrats must weaken the chains that hold them to public employees’ unions and champion solutions other than raising taxes.
Sadly, I don’t think any of those things will happen which means things will get worse before they get better. If they ever do.
We need more parties and freer ballot access, you missed the answer.
The WSj is absolutely correct. People should be allowed to give as much money as they want to politicians since money is never a factor in corruption. Heaven knows, no politician I have ever heard of could be influenced by money.
Steve
I’ll (partially) reiterate my proposal for campaign finance reform.
1. People can only give money to candidates they can vote for.
2. People can give however much they want to candidates they can vote for, but the money must be disclosed publicly before it is spent. This way the voters will better know who is being bought by whom.
3. Upon leaving office, politicians and their immediate family members cannot lobby government officials.
I still can’t think of a way to kill PACs and what not (note that this is part of a constitutional re-write on my part, so I won’t need to worry about various constitutional issues), so third party stuff is still a problem.
The purpose of these proposals is to make the politicians more beholden to their constituents. That doesn’t kill corruption by elected officials, but I don’t think it can hurt.
…
On the other side of it, the most powerful proposal would be to get rid of the civil service for most positions and return to the spoils system of old.
That is, of course, a radical position. The point is that civil service officials often come to hold a lot of institutional power which they can wield as they see fit. See the EPA or SEC for examples of this kind of thing. And they can use that power to help friends, and then potentially use that to help themselves to a more lucrative position in private industry.
But doesn’t the spoils system have the same problem? Mostly, yes. However, there is a key difference: In a spoils system, one can vote the worst of the corruption out of office by electing another political faction to power. It’s a crude approach, but effective.
Obviously, this means an end to government employee unions, which I believe should be done anyway. It also means that you need at least two effective political factions which actually oppose each other.
An example of how we don’t really have two opposing factions would be the career of Timmay Geithner: President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank under Bush, in which position he presided over the financial meltdown of Wall Street in 2008, and then Secretary of the Treasury under Obama, in which position he presided over the worst “recovery” in the history of the country, all the while making sure that the guys on Wall Street got fatter in good times and bad.
I’ve got NO ideas on how to get back to having two actually different political parties.
I would go farther and say you shouldn’t be able to lobby anybody you can’t vote for.
That’s interesting, but I’m not sure that it’s good. For example, lots of Congressmen I can’t vote for can sure as shit influence my life with their legislation.
“People should be allowed to give as much money as they want to politicians since money is never a factor in corruption. “
Yeah, Steve, take Hillary Clinton for example…
If you want to decrease political money advantages then start with the unions, as their democratic donations are huge. In fact out of the top 10 donors listed in Open Secrets only 2 are republican recipients — one of those being National Assoc. Of Realtors, who does a fairly even split between the parties — 48% to dems and 52% to republicans.
jan- The unions represent millions of people. The large GOP donors represent dozens to hundreds of people, for the most part. Then remember that this is just the money we can track. Now that we have Super PACs, it is the big money donors who dominate the money in the primaries, and will soon dominate in the generals. Just a few paragraphs to make this clear. Of course all these fine people are donating because they want the country to be a better place. I am sure they don’t want anything in return.
At least $13.5 million of the $20 million raised by Mr. Walker’s super PAC came from just four donors: the Wisconsin roofing billionaire and union foe Diane Hendricks; the Ricketts family of Nebraska and Illinois; the New York investor Len Blavatnik; and the Uihlein family of Illinois, whose members descend from the founders of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.
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Out of the $16 million raised by Conservative Solutions PAC, which is supporting Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, $12.5 million came from just four donors, including Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer and longtime patron of Mr. Rubio, and the tech investor Larry Ellison.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, has raised the most cash from the fewest donors. A collection of super PACs supporting Mr. Cruz raised $37 million, nearly all of it from three families. Robert Mercer, a deeply private hedge fund investor from New York, contributed $11 million, making him the top known political donor in the country so far this election cycle.
The Wilks family of Texas, which earned billions in the fracking boom, gave $15 million to back Mr. Cruz’s bid. Toby Neugebauer, a private equity investor in Puerto Rico — a home he adopted two years ago that has more favorable tax laws — gave $10 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-donors-dominates-election-giving.html
Steve,
The democratic party markets itself as representing the working class and the poor. At one time such a claim may have been credible. However, currently it’s simply not the case. Yes, Unions may have millions of members. But, those members don’t have a say as to which party they contribute their funds and volunteer time during elections. Consequently, many union members support one set of beliefs and/or candidates while their dues go elsewhere. For example, in this absurd age of Trump many members of his fan club are blue collar workers, whose unions are probably throwing money at Hillary Clinton.
Also, some of the oldest tax-exempt foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, funnel unknown amounts of money into democratic coffers. In fact It has been said that progressives outspend conservatives by a factor of seven to one. So when one is actually able to follow the sourcing of political money it’s the D party which has a better hand, by far, than the R’s.
Ironically, though, all the MSM, and dem operatives stress is the Citizen’s United court ruling in order to paint the opposition party as the one with an overwhelming monetary advantage. I might also remind you of the 2008 election where one candidate wanted to abide by financial reform rules and the other dissed it, going for the money machine instead. Do you recall the name of the money grubber?