Campaign season is well underway in Washington — unofficially, of course. Candidates cannot file to run for office until May 14, but fundraising activities follow a different calendar.
So, with news that candidates for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District raised more than $675,000 in contributions in the first quarter of this year, the machinations of the American election system are on full display. Incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler reported $391,500 in contributions, while Carolyn Long led the challengers with $239,000 during the quarter.
At the crux of the issue are questions about how well our representative democracy is served by exorbitant expenditures. Notably, those questions will be prominent in the race for Washington’s 5th Congressional District, where the seat held by Cathy McMorris Rodgers is expected to generate one of the nation’s most closely watched contests. McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, and Democratic opponent Lisa Brown combined to raise more than $1.4 million in the first three months of this year.
Again, candidates have not even officially announced their intent to run for office, but the money has started to flow. As humorist Will Rogers reputedly said, “Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.”
That was more than 80 years ago, but the comment remains insightful today as campaign donations have become equated with free speech. That ethos was reinforced by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. The 5-4 decision determined that government may not prevent corporations or unions from spending money to support or oppose candidates.
This has led to the rise of “dark money” in campaigns, with donations being provided by nonprofit organizations facing few obligations to reveal the source. As OpenSecrets.org, a valuable resource for examining political contributions, explains: “Dark Money groups account for staggering gaps in understanding exactly how each funding dollar is being spent during political elections. … Political organizations working to influence the 2016 elections outside party or official campaign structures spent more than $15 million in 2015, and only reported about $5 million of that to the Federal Election Commission.”
This should be anathema to those who care about election transparency. It also should be an issue that is bipartisan. While progressives are considered more likely than conservatives to view campaign finance reform an important issue, both sides have benefited from big-money donors who wield outsized influence. In one example, a Super PAC created one month before the election funneled $5.1 million toward Doug Jones last year in his successful race against Roy Moore for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.
Admittedly, it is difficult to get Americans to care about campaign finance reform; the issue routinely ranks low on polls about voter concerns. But allowing well-funded special interests to spend unlimited, untraceable money on campaigns undermines the foundation of our political system. As former President Jimmy Carter said last year: “We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
That is something that voters must keep in mind between now and the November election. When stories appear about a tidal wave of money coming into elections, it is important to consider what is causing that tsunami.
