The reach and power of American political corruption

A PBS documentary, Unrepresented, takes a deep dive into the origins, nature, scope and depth of corruption in American politics. The broadcast speaks to experts from a range of backgrounds and experiences. The bottom line is that with our current two-party pay-to-play political system, average voters are simply not represented and sooner or later, corruption will drive us to economic (and probably social) ruin. 

This is the best and clearest articulation of American political corruption I have ever seen. It pounds home this one central point: 

Unless corruption favors what people want on a given issue, government will not be responsive to deal with any problem or issue they believe needs to be addressed as they want it to be addressed, e.g., climate change, neo-fascist attacks on democracy, gun regulation, wealth inequality, etc. The only way that government will respond as a majority wants is if corruption is dealt with and its power significantly neutered. Corruption has displaced the will of the people. Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has nearly enough incentive to actually be serious about reducing corruption. Our system is now thoroughly corrupt. Corruption could be worse, but as it is now, it is pervasive and dominant. America is approaching the status of a full blown kleptocracy that runs on increasing federal debt.

Some of the key points are these:

• Corruption has been legalized; the presence and role of private sector money in politics that used to be illegal is now legal
• Our two-party political system now socializes risk and social and environmental damage but privatizes profit and sends most of it to elites at the top
• Many politicians in both parties (IMO, not Republicans any more) complain about the corrupting influence of money in politics and promise reform, but reform never comes instead, the situation worsens
• Three factors underpin and sustain the American system of political corruption, unrestrained and mostly unregulated private sector campaign financing, lobbyists and unlimited federal debt; those three factors are the source of the power of government corruption  
• Major corporate campaign donations tend to favor one of the two parties, but in general the split is not more than 60:40 for either of the two parties; politicians in both parties need to be bought to exert influence
• At the state level, both parties actively oppose measures to reduce corruption; Democrats in Blue states oppose it as quietly as they can, while Republicans in Red states are tend to be much more open about it, usually falsely labeling anti-corruption efforts as socialist, communist and/or tyranny
• The main reason there is bipartisan opposition to reducing corruption is that corruption helps both parties maintain their grip on (i) political power, (ii) the flow of cash into their coffers, and (iii) their ability to neuter threats from potential third party challenges; in other words, the incentives to maintain corruption are extremely high and not balanced by any significant incentives to be honest
• The incentives to be corrupt are so high that one manifestation of it is claims by politicians and parties of honesty to help them hide the fact of their corruption 
• The producers of Unrepresented argue that the system sidetracks honest politicians by putting them in positions of limited power in congress; in essence, the system itself is corrupt, not necessarily all individual politicians (but IMO, a lot (~65% ?) of individual politicians are corrupt themselves to some degree)  
• The politicians in power in congress in both parties are the ones who can raise the most money, not the ones who can govern best
• People in congress spend 30-70% of most every day they can making phone calls to potential donors or attending fund raising events
• About 100,000 wealthy Americans are the reliable donors that congressional politicians routinely turn to for cash and those donors have to be kept happy or their donations will stop; in large part, the federal government is responsive to the demands of that group of 100,000 rich people, less than 0.1% of potential voters (100,000/235 million eligible voters = 0.04%)
• Individuals and groups that do not make major contributions are mostly ignored, regardless of what they want, unless what they want is what the 0.04% also want 
• In return for political donations or ‘investments’ up to the several million dollars, an industry sector can often expect to reap billions in added revenues and tens or hundreds of millions in new profits 
• After the Citizens United the Supreme Court decision in 2010, special interest money in politics increased greatly, giving the big donors significantly more political access and power than they had before the decision; representation is not equal and citizens are therefore not equal in the eyes of government
• To be competitive for re-election, people in congress must be campaigning from the moment they win a campaign
• To be in a track to power in congress, e.g., on a powerful committee or in line to be a committee chairman, a politician must meet fund raising goals, which is necessary to even have a chance at significant power and influence; a leaked document from the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) shows a mandatory schedule of 4 hours per 10 hour work day raising money; a new person in congress is expected to raise about $18,000 per day
• People in congress are under so much pressure to raise money that they sometimes openly complain to their leadership that debating legislation is a waste of time because they need to get back to making phone calls to donors asking for as little as $1,000 from a donor who donated $18,000 last year
• Legalized bribery exists through lobbyists who can represent a donor and argue for what the donor wants; lobbyists are necessary because a donor cannot directly ask a politician for what they want because it would look like bribery; going through a lobbyist allows a donor to give a lot more money than current laws allow through direct donations

• Lobbying is mostly unregulated -- donations do not have to be reported; since 1938, only 8 lobbyists have been prosecuted for bribing a politician
• Large corporations now see Washington as a profit center
• Efforts to shrink government increasingly operate by outsourcing government work to the big donors, which helps hide the payback that donations buy; contractors become part of the political infrastructure → federal contractors make donations and get more contracting work in return
• Unlimited federal debt allows both Democrats and Republicans to get some of what they want because unlimited debt makes it easy to spend; in the past taxes were increased to pay for increased spending, but now spending is financed by new debt
• The pharmaceutical industry has corrupted government by buying politicians to get law passed that prohibits the federal government as the world's biggest drug buyer to negotiate prices; that leaves companies free to charge whatever they want, regardless of costs or profits; that alone is worth billions in profit, not just revenues
• Corruption includes the making of working on Capitol Hill as a politician or staffer unpleasant and jumping from government to lobbying very appealing; expertise in government has been hollowed out, and more drafting of laws is now in the hands of the private sector interests who are affected by the laws they write themselves → they write laws to favor themselves at the expense of the public interest → some huge corporations wind up paying little or no taxes
• Politicians, especially Republicans, know that the public would not tolerate the high cost of war, so they lie to the American people, hire more contractors and increase federal debt to help hide both the cost of that and their own corruption 
• Congress has not passed a full budget on time since 1997, which helps hide corrupt spending in huge, unread and undebated spending bills with no reforms or restraints that congressional leadership arranges to pass at the last moment in the dead of night to help their sleaze fly under the MSM’s and public’s radar
• Unrepresented cited poll data that 96% of Americans believe that special interest money has corrupted politics, but 91% believe it is impossible to change the situation
• Etc., etc., etc.

The sleaze and corruption is routine and endless. The level of corruption in the military budget is ghastly. Unwarranted opacity and complexity helps our corrupt system hide the corruption.

U.S. Constitution, Article V:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

The documentary ends with an argument that it is necessary for the states to force congress to deal with the issue of corruption through an Article 5 (A5) constitutional amendment in a proposed amendment called the American Anticorruption Act. The point is to make political corruption illegal again, e.g., by overturning the pro-corruption Citizens United Supreme Court decision, among other things. It turns out that, despite opposition, a years long effort has got 25 state legislatures so far to call for for an A5 convention to address corruption, which now requires two thirds of state legislatures (34 states) to call . 

My immediate reaction to this proposed A5 convention was vehement opposition grounded in fear. That was based on what happened at the original constitutional convention in 1787. The 1787 was called to amend the Articles of Confederation (AoC). The AoC was a failure that almost cost the US the Revolutionary War. The states understood that and agreed to amend the AoC. The people behind the convention never intended to revise the AoC. Their goal was to ignore it and write a new constitution, which they did. My fear was that a convention called by the states could do the same. Unrepresented went on to directly address and assuage my initial fear in great detail. 

The states cannot do what was done in 1787 because Article V requires three-fourths of states (38 states) to ratify a new amendment. That requirement was not present in 1787 because the current constitution did not exist then. All there was at that time was the ineffective AoC and it did not prevent what happened.[1] 

Six minute video on corruption

Princeton, Gilens and Page study data for average people:

low public support → ~30% chance of becoming law

50% public support → ~30% chance of becoming law

high public support → ~30% chance of becoming law

Rich people: government is more responsive

Conclusion:  Public support or opposition is not relevant, 

but money in politics is

One group that has been working nationwide to call a state-initiated constitutional convention is Wolf-PAC. I've started a monthly donation. Unrepresented convinced me that neither party can or wants to address corruption because the money constitutes a compelling incentive to maintain a corrupt government and political system. Maybe a move to force a state-initiated convention can at least make two things clear to the American people. First, the seriousness of corruption in government and the central role of special interest money. Second, the possibility that maybe, just maybe, our system can actually be changed to better serve the American people instead of special interests backed by plies of cash and slick lobbyists making about a million or two each year.  

The time factor: It will take years to get 34 states to call for a constitutional convention to try to address our corrupt political system, and more years before 38 ratify it. All along the way, both parties will try to derail the effort using propaganda, lies, smears, slanders and any other means they can think of to maintain our corrupt status quo. The one thing that provides a basis for at least some hope is there seems to be a significant majority (not necessarily 96%) of Americans, maybe about 75%, who believe that special interest money has too much influence and has corrupted our political system. 

May 2018 data

Given the slow pace of a constitutional convention and the urgency of other things, it might make sense to focus on three or four priorities at the same time. My assessment looks like this:

1. Highest priority because it is most immediate: The Republican Party’s neo-fascist attack on democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties 

2, 3, 4. About equal priority: Climate change, corruption, and wealth inequality  

Question: Is it possible to actually make corruption illegal, or is there just too damn much money involved to reduce corruption? In other words, is the idea of a meaningful anti-corruption law too far fetched to be anything other than a deranged pipe dream or some variant of a crackpot QAnon conspiracy theory?

Footnote: 

1. Unrepresented argues that the safeguard to a runaway constitutional convention is the three-fourths ratification requirement that A5 specifies. Various analyses have drawn that conclusion.

For example, a 1974 American Bar Association study concluded that a constitutional convention would not spin out of control like the 1787 convention did: “The major conclusion reached from the study is that a national constitutional convention can be channeled so as not to be the unleashing of a radical force in the system, but rather an orderly mechanism of effecting constitutional change when circumstances require its use.” 

But, the wild card here now is the current radical, neo-fascist US Supreme Court. There are complexities and unanswered questions about A5 conventions. For example, some states have rescinded their applications for an A5 convention, which may or may not be valid. A few rescissions of a recission have also occurred. The US Supreme Court could assert exclusive authority to decide what is valid and what isn’t. It would decide on the side of neo-fascism. A 2017 Congressional Research Service analysis discusses these issues, but the last firewall against an out of control A5 convention remains the requirement for three-fourths of states (currently 38) to ratify.