Rebuild the Dream

by Van Jones

  Some groups need to step forward to make sure that the interests and ideas of the 99% are represented in political campaigns and in the established halls of power.

  While reaching for our hopes, we hit our heads on a ceiling that we didn’t know was there. The pain was real, but we can’t let the backlashers tear the floor out from under us, as well. The Tea Party, the Koch brothers, and others are working nonstop to eliminate the safety net and free big corporations to loot and pollute at will. They are using every tool at their disposal, including elections, to impose their agenda. Some section of the 99% movement must respond in kind and in the same arenas.

  WHY ADD ELECTIONS TO TOOLBOX?

  Protest alone won’t move the needle. Even in the face of nationwide protests, Washington, DC, is still “pre-Occupied.” The U.S. Congress, which failed to pass the president’s job bill, is still contemplating horrible cuts to necessary programs, including a November 2011 proposal to cut Medicare by $400 billion. Meanwhile, the White House and the Department of Justice seem dedicated to letting Wall Street banksters get away with their crimes. The Department of Justice continues to push for a deal that would let the banks off the hook far too cheaply. The proposed releases for wrongdoing in the mortgage debacle are far too broad; there has been far too little discovery to know the extent of the bank’s fraud. And yet the financial sector may be able to bury its wrongdoing forever.

  The occupation ofWall Street may be over. What never ended was the occupation byWall Street of our nation’s capitol, where hordes of lobbyists have practically taken over. That is the occupation that should upset the media. That is the occupation true patriots see as the threat to our nation.

  And that is the peril to which we must respond. Every day our government functions more like a plutocracy—a political system by, of, and for the mega-wealthy. In the sage words of commentator Bill Moyers, “Wealth acquired under capitalism is in and of itself no enemy of democracy, but wealth armed with political power—power to choke off opportunities for others to rise . . . is a proven danger.” If we don’t run the reform fights and fix the political process, even the best of our neighborhood efforts, protests, and entrepreneurial innovations won’t work. There is only so much any movement can get done when it has to fight its opponents as well as the system itself.

  We cannot get everything we want in the voting booth. But if we fail to vote, we can still lose everything we have there.

  This is the sobering reality: we cannot get everything we want in the voting booth. But if we don’t vote at all, we can still lose everything we have there. We must take elections seriously. As corrupt as the system has become, we simply cannot refuse to play the Inside Game, even as we work to change it.

  In this chapter, I make the case for three tactics:

  1. Change the Game: Fix our democracy by getting big money and corporations out of our political system.

  2. Play the Game: Put proposals and candidates on the ballot who will defend the 99% and help rebuild the American Dream.

  3. Win the Game: Force both parties to be better champions for the 99%, in the same way that the Tea Party movement ultimately forced both parties to be better champions for the worst of the 1%.

  CHANGE THE GAME: GET MONEY OUT AND REFORMS IN

  The number-one reason that American democracy isn’t working for the 99% is the influence of big money in politics. Corporate money should be used for corporate purposes—not political purposes. Business is business, but our democracy is sacred. Our elected leaders should not be for sale.

  The economic clout of many companies is larger than that of entire countries. By some calculations, fifty-two of the world’s largest economies are corporations. Unchecked, corporations have the power to fill every office with sympathetic shills and toadies, who can then change any law, even good laws, that happen to interfere with their bottom line.

  Most Americans see the danger. In 2010, a national survey by People for the American Way found that

  • 85 percent of voters say that corporations have too much influence over the political system today, while 93 percent say that average citizens have too little influence;

  • 95 percent agree that corporations spend money on politics mainly to buy influence in government and elect people who are favorable to their financial interests (74 percent strongly agree);

  • 85 percent disagree that corporations should be able to spend as much as they want to influence the outcome of elections because the Constitution protects freedom of speech (63 percent strongly disagree);

  • 93 percent agree that there should be clear limits on how much money corporations can spend to influence the outcome of an election (74 percent strongly agree);

  • 77 percent think Congress should support an amendment to limit the amount U.S. corporations can spend to influence elections; and

  • 74 percent say that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who pledged to support a Constitutional amendment limiting corporate spending in elections.

  We should be able to make big changes, based on these kinds of numbers. Our politics so often is divided and divisive, but here we see powerful consensus. The fact that it is hard to make changes is itself a symptom of how broken the system is. The Supreme Court, packed with apologists for corporate rule, has overturned the people’s will on this matter, again and again.

  How do we fix it? There are five steps we can take: overturn the Citizens United ruling, reform the way campaigns are financed, put lobbyists on a leash, increase transparency, and fix the filibuster.

  Overturn “Citizens United” Ruling

  The 2010 Supreme Court case radically extended the reach of corporate power in our democracy. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a 5–4 majority of the Court held that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend whatever they like to influence election outcomes.

  There’s nothing “conservative” about this. Until the 1970s, corporations did not have First Amendment speech rights. In 1978, with First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, corporations won the right to spend money on political referenda. The Supreme Court also established a commercial speech right, originally predicated on the right of consumers to get information. Using these relatively new First Amendment speech rights, corporations have successfully challenged not only restrictions on their campaign spending but rules restricting advertising that were intended to keep our people and our democracy safe. For example, milk producers have used the First Amendment to defeat requirements to label milk as containing hormones.

  Citizens United opened the floodgates for a massive influx of corporate cash into elections. In the 2010 elections, outside spending (that is, excluding party committees) exceeded $300 million, with nearly half of that coming from undisclosed sources. That’s more than the combined total of outside spending on every midterm election between 1990 and 2006. If the top one hundred corporations decided to throw in just 1 percent of their profits to influence the 2012 elections, they could outspend every candidate for president, House, and Senate combined.

  Congress cannot simply overturn the ruling, though, since the Supreme Court invoked the constitutional protections of the First Amendment. Therefore, we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision. The need to overturn the decision grew in popularity during the Occupy protests. A famous sign in Zuccotti Park read, “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” In a December 16, 2011, letter to the Austin Chronicle, entitled “Occupy the Future,” Michael Ventura wrote,

  Until the Civil War, the Supreme Court justified slavery. The 13th and 14th amendments (1865 and 1868) changed that. Until 1920, American women were denied the vote. The 19th amendment changed that. Until 1964, Southern states enforced segregation by tactics such as poll taxes. The 24th amendment made those tactics illegal. Through an amendment to the constitution, we can change the legal status of corporations. We can do it now.

  The amendment w
ould need to establish that for-profit corporations do not have First Amendment speech rights. The amendment would not limit freedom of the press for corporations, or it could be drafted to exclude media corporations carrying out broadcasting or publishing. Amending the Constitution is not (and should not be) easy. But it can be done, as history makes clear. The 23rd and 26th amendments (establishing voting rights for District of Columbia residents, and setting the minimum voting age at eighteen) were passed by Congress and ratified in less than a year. (That said, it took 203 years between the original proposal and ultimate ratification of our most recent amendment, the 27th, which impacts Congressional salaries.)

  The mechanism for amending the U.S. Constitution requires both the House and Senate to pass the proposal with a two-thirds majority; then the proposed amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures. The key to success is a strong foundation of popular support. Right now, there is enormous anti-corporate sentiment, uniting people across party lines: 85 percent of Americans feel that corporations have too much power in our democracy. A campaign begun at the state level would make sense: it would provide leverage to push Congress and lay the groundwork for winning the thirty-eight states that are required for ratification.

  By early 2012, the battle had begun somewhat. Nonprofit political watchdog and advocacy groups Public Citizen and Common Cause are leading campaigns to organize citizens and work with legislators. Common Cause, whose chairman is economist Robert Reich, is promoting ballot measures that give voters the opportunity to instruct members of Congress to take action to reverse Citizens United. Meanwhile, members of Congress have already introduced a number of Constitutional amendments, some of which do not specifically address the ruling that corporations have free speech rights. On September 12, 2011, less than a week before the Occupiers arrived at Zuccotti Park, Representative Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) introduced H.J. Res.78, which would clarify the authority of Congress and the states to regulate the expenditure of funds for political activity by corporations. Similarly, in November 2011, Democratic senators Tom Udall of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado proposed a Constitutional amendment (S. J. Res 29) to give federal and state congresses the authority to regulate campaign contributions and expenditures.

  Other proposals do reverse corporate personhood. In November 2011, Florida representative Ted Deutch introduced the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) amendment. It would ban for-profit corporations from contributing to campaign spending and explicitly clarify that corporations are not people and cannot be protected by the Constitution. Vermont Independent senator Bernie Sanders introduced a companion measure to the Senate known as the Saving American Democracy Amendment.

  Nonpartisan group Free Speech for People produced the People’s Rights Amendment, introduced by Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. In December 2011, Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota introduced the Get Corporate Money Out of Politics Constitutional amendment. Both declare that corporations are not people.

  In December 2011, Representatives John Yarmuth of Kentucky and Walter Jones of North Carolina introduced a bipartisan amendment that would establish that financial expenditures and in-kind contributions do not qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment. It also makes Election Day a legal holiday and enables Congress to establish a public financing system that would serve as the sole source of funding for federal elections.

  Short of an amendment, there are other steps that can be taken. One way is to address the issue of public financing for federal elections, which would at least give candidates a base of decent funding to offset whatever corporations choose to spend. Other legislative approaches also could minimize the damage, such as requiring disclosure of the sources of political spending and requiring that a majority of shareholders must approve any corporate electoral-related expenditure.

  Common Cause has promoted the DISCLOSE (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections) Act, which would force corporations and unions to publicly stand by their ads (the top-five donors would be listed on the screen). The DISCLOSE Act, as passed by the House in 2010, would

  • Prohibit corporations that receive federal contracts worth more than $50,000 from spending money to influence federal elections;

  • Prohibit companies that have received and not paid back funds from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) from spending money on elections; and

  • Prevent foreign-based corporations from spending money on elections. Companies that have 20 percent foreign voting shares or a majority of foreign directors would also be forbidden from spending money on elections.

  Although the DISCLOSE Act passed in the House, a Republican-led filibuster blocked it repeatedly from passing in the Senate.

  A new organization called United Re:public is building a coalition from across the political spectrum to counter special interests in politics. Its strategy is to make grants supporting people and organizations with viable solutions. United Re:public recently merged with Rootstrikers, a group founded by Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, and with the Get Money Out campaign, an effort started by MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, both of which share the goal of ending the domination of Big Money over the political process.

  Put Lobbyists on a Leash

  There are roughly thirteen thousand registered lobbyists in Washington, DC, with nearly $3.5 billion spent annually on lobbying. That doesn’t include unregistered players who are connected to enough votes or dollars to influence legislation. Overwhelmingly, these lobbyists represent corporate interests, and their job is to influence the lawmaking process. The healthcare sector, for example, spent more than $4 billion lobbying congress and other agencies between 1998 and 2010.

  For decades, lobbyists played defense, protesting proposed legislation that would restrict or cost their corporations. But since the end of the 1990s, they’ve become increasingly engaged in offensive maneuvers as well, actively pushing corporate-friendly tax breaks and looser regulations.

  Access to lawmakers is critical; therefore, former federal employees with connections inside Washington are indispensible to lobbying firms. Through the “revolving door,” these former public servants lobby the very individuals who were once their coworkers and supervisors. For this work they are richly rewarded. In September 2010, as the outcomes of the approaching elections leaned toward the Republicans, the going rate for well-connected Republicans started at salaries of $300,000, up to $1 million for positions in the private sector.

  Proposed solutions to limiting lobbyists are the following:

  • Extend the current one-year moratorium on former Congress members lobbying other members of Congress to a full five years. Apply the same rule to federal appointees.

  • Prohibit congressional staffers from lobbying Congress for two years after they leave the service of a congressional office.

  • Ban the acceptance of all gifts, services, money, or things of value to any elected or appointed official from any entity that the official is charged with regulating.

  Reform Campaign Finances

  More than 90 percent of the time, the candidate who spent the most money on her or his campaign winds up the winner. Without significant funding, even a good candidate has no chance. As a consequence, she or he spends a great deal of time fund-raising, leaving less time for the business of governance, legislation, and hearing from constituents. Nate Thames of ActBlue notes that incumbents in the House need to raise roughly $10,000 each week, beginning on the day they are elected, which translates to more than ten hours of time per week on the phone, calling donors. An even bigger problem is that the majority of our elected officials have morphed into the mouthpieces of their largest donors—corporations as well as unions and wealthy individuals.

  And for every restriction that’s been placed on campaign financing, loopholes let the worst practices sneak back in. State governments have been experimenting wit
h various ways to reform campaign financing, which provide some models worth considering at the national level, including requiring disclosure of contributors, caps on spending and contributions, and, most important, public financing.

  In its simplest form, public financing of political campaigns consists of providing “qualified” candidates with public funds to conduct their campaigns. To qualify, a candidate must show broad public support by collecting a certain number of small donations from individuals. The idea is to provide candidates with the means necessary to pay for campaign activity while easing their fund-raising frenzy and lessening the perception that politicians are granting private favors in exchange for their campaign funds. Public dollars give candidates a base of financial support, without forcing them to attract support from corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

  The leading bill in Congress, in early 2012, to advance public financing of elections is the Fair Elections Now Act, which would permit participating candidates to raise a large number of small contributions ($100 or less) from their communities to qualify for Fair Elections funding (fifteen hundred contributions, totaling $50,000 for the House of Representatives). Qualified candidates for the House would receive $900,000 in public funds, 60 percent of which would be for the general election. Additionally, donations of $100 or less from in-state contributors would be matched by $5 from the Fair Elections Fund for every dollar raised. The Fair Elections Now Act made substantial advances in the last Congress. It was voted out of the House Administration Committee, obtaining 165 cosponsors in the House and fourteen cosponsors in the Senate.