In Politics, More Can Mean Less

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/us/10iht-letter10.html

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WASHINGTON — The fears that big money would corrupt the U.S. political process in 2012 were not realized, the conventional wisdom says. The fat cats, unshackled by Supreme Court and lower court decisions, were not able to buy the presidency or the Senate.

True. It also misses the point. About $6 billion was spent on the campaign, and outside groups poured $1.3 billion into political races, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Supporters of the Citizens United ruling and other campaign-finance cases dismissed the concerns about corruption, contending that more money in elections would increase voter participation and turnout and enhance voters’ knowledge about the candidates and important issues.

Actually, even though considerably more money was spent this year than four years ago, turnout in the general election was down a little. Even in some of the most competitive battleground states like Ohio, where both sides poured in cash, turnout decreased.

And the higher turnout in some other states was due more to the political infrastructure and ground game than the money the outside groups spent on the airwaves. During the autumn campaign, dozens of voters in those states told me that the carpet bombing of political television commercials caused them to turn off their televisions.

The outpouring of money was pronounced in the Republican primaries, and turnout did not soar there, either, even though there was not a real competing Democratic contest.

One irony was that the “super PAC” backing Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, devastated his opponents in the primaries, but in the general election, it was a super PAC backing President Barack Obama, with its early attacks on Mr. Romney’s private-equity background, that was more effective.

Did the record amounts of money inform and edify voters? It would be hard to find a serious Republican or Democrat who argues it did.

Most insidious is the corrosive corruption of big money. This is a reality that the ruling’s backers in the Supreme Court majority — none of whom had to run for office — tried to play down. Do they believe that the Texas billionaire Harold Simmons — who could gain a lot more money with a favorable Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision permitting his West Texas dump site to accept depleted uranium — contributed $27 million to Mr. Romney and other Republicans only in the interest of good government?

The Republicans’ biggest sugar daddy, the Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, forked over $90 million in this cycle. The Huffington Post reported that Mr. Adelson was in Washington last week to meet Republican members of Congress, possibly to discuss changes to the anti-bribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. His company is under investigation by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the law by his casinos in Macau.

On the Democratic side, there are reports that Mr. Obama’s next ambassador to Britain — or perhaps France — will be Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor whose chief qualifications appear to be that she held at least three big fund-raisers for the president and, as a top bundler, raked in more than $2.7 million for his campaign.

Correctives to the Citizens United ruling are difficult. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, is pushing a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision. That is not going to happen: Such an effort has the support of almost no Republicans and requires approval from two-thirds of the Congress and three-fourths of the states.

Two House Democrats, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and David E. Price of North Carolina, are pushing a measure that would match small contributions with government money. This solution would be much cheaper for taxpayers than relying on special interests, but it is a tough slog in the current Washington climate. They also are pushing for greater transparency when it comes to the fiction that candidate super PACs are distinct from the candidate’s campaign. And Mr. Van Hollen would end the secret contributions now permissible under Federal Election Commission rules and require complete disclosure.

These proposals meet the Supreme Court’s standards. A test of whether the measures go anywhere is whether they can garner some Republican support; advocates are waiting to see whether Senator John McCain of Arizona, a onetime champion of campaign-finance reform, will rekindle his reformer’s zeal.

The bankruptcy of the money-driven system was evident in the amount of time the presidential candidates spent fund-raising. In the three weeks after the Republican National Convention, Mr. Romney held 12 rallies, three news conferences and 18 fund-raisers in places like mansions overlooking Biscayne Bay in Florida and a Las Vegas steakhouse where Mr. Adelson had a front-row seat.

It was at a fund-raiser, which he thought was private, as most were, that Mr. Romney made his infamous comment about the 47 percent of Americans who “believe they are victims,” and “pay no income tax.”

Mr. Obama hustled almost as much, taking time away from governing and campaigning. Perhaps spending so much time in such opulent surroundings reinforced the president’s view that the rich can afford to pay higher taxes.