Citizen’s United 2: Democrat’s Revenge

2016 has been loaded with sequels. Finding Dory, The Purge 3, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, the list goes on and on. And sure the three aforementioned titles grossed millions of dollars domestically this summer, but there’s a different sequel you haven’t heard about racking in just as much serious coinage over this summer. (SPOILER ALERT: It’s not a film).

Much less scintillating than a Hollywood Earthquake flick, the recent ruling of McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission has done just as much to shake up the 2016 election. Essentially the decision has cast away the cap on individual contributions to political campaigns installed during the 70s under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972. The New York Times further details the slackened legislation:

After the McCutcheon decision, Mrs. Clinton established an agreement last year with the Democratic Party under which she asked her wealthiest patrons to write checks in excess of $300,000, more than double the old limit.

Because there are no limits on how much money party committees can transfer to one another, most of the state parties have cycled their share back to the Democratic National Committee. The party then moved the cash into a smaller number of battleground states to prepare for Election Day.

Ironically the decision has been decried by much of the Republican establishment that was once proudly touting the Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission decision as a landmark in the reformulation of our nation’s campaign finance policy – the very decision that declared “money the equivalent of speech” and spurred the burgeoning of the super-PAC era of American politics.

(Source: Sunlight Foundation, 2016)

The most notable impact so far is opposite of the original Citizen’s United proponents intentions. The conservative think tank organization’s lobbying has resulting in more than $100 million dollars donated to the Clintoncampaign over the Trump campaign. Democrats have taken advantage of the recent ruling to increase campaign funds by uncapped personal donations to the Hillary Campaign fund.

This development in the arc of American campaign finance isn’t about the schadenfreude liberals can gloat in, but the frightening revelation in our nation’s politics that the original liberal antagonists of the Citizen’s United case are now fully embracing the second coming of the landmark decision with McCutcheon. (And while Hillary voiced dissent to the 2014 decision, her full force embrace of the decision in her campaign finance tells a different story).

And perhaps the Democrats aren’t completely to blame for exercising their right to fundraise (especially during such a toxic and pivotal election). But it does pose a dangerous look at our runaway campaign finance policy, especially when the original opponents are now embracing the decision at a $100 million advantage. Does this mean that soon our elections can truly be bought by handful of the wealthy? Once upon a time, that was hyperbole thrown around in New York Times Op-Ed’s, but now that might be a real possibility in the next few elections.

To take it back to Hollywood analogies, sequels rarely do live up to their originals (Jaws 2 anybody?). But this is a sequel we need to be talking about, yet nobody is.