Campaign Finance - The McCutcheon Decision

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The American electorate has again been subjected to the idiocy and hypocrisy of the political class and the hysteria over campaign financing. A ruling this month by the Supreme Court has driven imbeciles from all parts of the body politic to cries of the end of democracy – the liberal left – to proclamations on the leveling of the electoral playing field – the hypocritical right.

To wit:

The Supreme Court in its ruling has removed the prohibition of limits on total campaign contributions in a case brought before it by plaintiff Shaun McCutcheon. McCutcheon claimed that there was no constitutional or legal restraint to his ability to donate to an unlimited number of elections in any given election cycle of two years.

The Court agreed, without ruling on, or removing the cap that is permitted to any specific candidate.

Obviously both ends of the political spectrum and their accompanying media flacks have it wrong.

Sadly for the American people, Congress has failed to act upon this ruling to provide the clarity and transparency they all claim they desire in the matter of campaign finance reform.

The Madison Conservative has on many occasions noted how best to resolve the ambiguities of money in politics, and thus will take advantage of the Courts ruling to again address the issue.

The Court has previously ruled in the Citizens United case that corporations are entities and as such should be allowed to contribute as they wish to any and/or all political campaigns.

While The Madison Conservative disagrees vehemently with that decision –it is our belief that only those who can enter a voting booth should be allowed to financially participate in elections - it is indeed the law of the land and cannot be ignored.

Herein is the proposal:

As there are now no restrictions to who may contribute financially to any given campaign, and no limit to the number of campaigns, the United States Congress should enact a simple law, one that will easily pass constitutional muster. The law would  state that any individual or corporation which provides any financial or other manner of support to any campaign, any political party or issue driven initiative must have that donation published within 24 hours by the Secretary of State of the state within which the financial largesse was provided.  This level of information would allow for the dismantling of the political action committees and their nbuloius financial reporting systems.

In this way, the American electorate can easily distinguish who is providing the funds for each and every campaign. It would disclose the medias’ political proclivities, and provide the transparency the American people deserve.

It would be of great interest to see which politicians would argue against such a law and the reasoning behind such an opposition. In addition, it is the belief of the Madison Conservative that such a law would help dry up funding by clandestine political means, for surely there are many corporations and other such entities that would not wish to have their political funding apparatus known.

The nation must take hold of this opportunity and demand action by the political cowards who have so far shown no inclination to provide for true electoral democracy.

{ed. Note – The blog will return in two weeks}