Buying the Political System
The influence of money in politics is an important question that many tend to investigate and answer in the political science field. Now, there are two answers to this question, the first answer would be that money does not matter in politics because donations, or contributions to candidates, are just seen as a form of investment or consumption. The other answer is that money does influence the political system, especially when it comes to judges voting on certain issues, and also how money polarizes political parties and candidates. Furthermore, we will first look at the academics that say that money does not matter in the political system.
Does money matter yes or no?
Many individuals that promote the idea that money does not matter in the political system of the United States say that money is like giving a gift basket to politicians (Milyo,2002: 158), while others say that money does not have importance in the political system because there is not a lot of money being poured into it due to it being viewed as a bad investment, or just seen as a form of consumption. For starters Milyo, in his Campaign Spending and Electoral Competition article, mentions that scholars have agreed upon a “scholarly consensus” that money does not matter in congressional races (Milyo,2013: 3). He mentions this because in congressional races, like that of the House, there is little outside money coming in. Milyo says that from the 76 competitive House races he chose, there was only about $2 million dollars given to incumbents from outside groups, while $2.2 million were given to challengers (Ibid.,4). This idea of little money in the U.S. political system is also argued by Ansolabehere, De Figueiredo, and Synder. Now, these three authors bring up the 1999–2000 election cycle where about $2.4 billion was raised by small donations from donors, while $235 million came from matching funds, and only $380 million came directly from the treasuries of corporations, unions, and other associations (Ansolabehere, De Figueiredo, Synder,2003: 108). Furthermore, they also mentioned how PAC’s have only given 4% of contributions to candidates from the House and the Senate, also when giving contributions, these PAC’s only give no more than $10,000 in donations (Ibid.,108). Nonetheless, as their studies indicate that very few money, is giving to candidates to the point where even PAC donations are seen as insignificant in voting behavior, they start to speak about how money is more of an investment rather than motivation for candidates to sway towards their donor’s positions. A good example of this would be fiscal year of 2000, in which the U.S. government spent $134 billion dollars in defense contracts, due to this industry donating millions of dollars to candidates in 1998 and 2000 (Ansolabehere, De Figueiredo, Synder,2003: 110, 116). Though this is not enough to some scholars, another group of scholars believe that money does influence candidates in the political system.
On the other side of the argument, there are scholars that argue that money does have an influence within the United States political system, especially when there are kick start dinners that cost $100,000 during political campaigns (“How Money Drives”,2016: 4). Also, one can see that money has been deeply drilled into the political system, when in 1994 Gingrich and his revolutionaries won the House of Representatives for the Republicans. The way Gingrich won the House would be that him and many of his friends, like Haley Barbour and Phil Gramm, were connected to big businesses that wanted to roll back the New Deal Regulations (“How Money Drives”,2016: 18). By being connected to big businesses, the Republicans drowned the Democrats with a wave of money being poured into the House, also when the Republicans won the House, Wall Street was celebrating this great victory (“How Money Drives”,2016: 8,18). Nonetheless, Gingrich is not the only Republican to get support from big businesses, there was also Mitt Romney who, in the 2012 election, gained a lot of support from big money. During the 2012 elections, Romney had a lot of money coming in from Super PACs, and from here the Republican party rallied behind him because of the money machine that he created during the primaries (“Party Competition”,2013:5,13). Now, the Republicans are not the only ones that received support from big money, the Democrats also gained big donations, in the 2012 elections, Barack Obama had 61% of contributions categorized as itemized contributions, meaning that those contributions were more than $250 (“Party Competition”,2013: 16). The reason why Democrats also yield or went searching for big money, was because unions were not that powerful anymore, also their donations began to decline, and this made Democrats go search for money elsewhere (“Party Competition”,2013: 8). Notwithstanding, money is a huge player in the United States political system, especially when it comes to motivating judge’s votes, as well as when it comes to polarizing the political parties.
Money in the courts and parties
Money is already a big thing in the political system, but a judge’s decision is even bigger for people. A poll was taken in Texas, and about 83% of voters believed that money influences judges, now the percentage is lower for judges themselves; in Texas about 48% of judges believe that money influences them (McCall, McCall.2007: 216). Nonetheless, money is crucial to a judge especially when campaigns have become more expensive, and as they want to win their seats back. An example of this would be when lawyers that represent the conservative party make a contribution, six months before the elections, the party gains 80% of votes from the judges (McCall, McCall,2007: 220). Also, when defendants or plaintiffs that do not give money to judges, they have a low rate of winning occurring within their case (Ibid.,221). Nonetheless, this is bad because the McCall and McCall, Campaign Contributions. article contains a chart that displays that the plaintiff that makes contributions have a 55.4% of gaining votes, while those that do not contribute only have a 23% of gaining any form of votes (McCall, McCall,2007: 218). Another example of such influences of money would be in Alabama judges that receive donations from businesses will lean towards business interest by supporting arbitration (Rebe,2016: 66). There are, more comparisons between individuals that make and do not make donations to judges, and they all convey that money influences a judge. In addition, judges rely on these donations because ever since 2000, campaigns have become expensive, so they try to maximize their votes by seeking and securing funds to win the elections (McCall, McCall,2007, Cann,2007). Now, there are some states that money does not have much of an influence in a judge’s decisions. For example, in the state of Wisconsin judges are nonpartisan, the state funds them during the elections, and the judges in Wisconsin are elected for 10 years terms (Cann,2007: 291). Due to state funding, and long year terms, judges in Wisconsin are isolated from outside money. The state also has a moralistic political culture, which helps isolate judges from money, unlike other states like Georgia, who are traditionalistic, and do not fund their judges, while having short serving terms (Ibid., 291). Nonetheless, judges are not the only ones influenced by money, parties are too influenced by money.
There are two ideas of how money influences political parties, one debatable idea that was argued by La Raja and Schaffner would be that money flows to candidates rather than parties, due to regulations. La Raja and Schaffner state that regulating the party from receiving contributions will just have resources moving to other places, and these places would be the extreme candidates (La Raja, Schaffner,2015: 109). Also, because money is flowing to the candidates themselves and not the party, this makes the party weak due to candidates going to where the money is coming from, thus making candidates lean closely to the interests of the median voter (La Raja, Schaffner,2015:111–113). Regulations on political parties are not the only reason why donations are not flown into the party, money is flown to candidates the most because individuals, mostly conservative ones, see the party too “moderate”, hence they will donate to extremists within the party (La Raja, Schaffner,2015: 115). Though this assumption is not correct, especially when Ferguson and other scholars argue that money is donated to both party and candidates, the Gingrich example is presented in this case. As mentioned earlier, Gingrich and his allies flooded the House with millions of dollars to defeat and gain the House back for the Republicans. Though, this created a polarization of the political parties in the United States system. The reason why money has polarized the parties and candidates, would be that for starters, extremists that do not seem favorable for leadership positions will substitute their less attractive ideology with the ability of brining in a lot of money into the party through their fundraising “powers” (Heberlig, Hetherington, Larson, 2006: 993). The reason why the rank and file of parties focus on the extremist abilities to raise money would be because of their focus of campaign money being redistributed to the members of congress. An example of this would be that in the 101st and 102nd Congress party, members only distributed less than $3 million, but since the aftermath of Gingrich “revolution” Congress members have redistributed $15 million in the 1990–2000 cycle, thus making extremist important for redistributing more money (Ibid.,994). Now, Gingrich and his allies were the ones that polarized the Republican party, and this also had an effect on the Democrats whom then follow the Republicans, and this developed both national party committees into cash machines (Ferguson,2011: 22). Nonetheless, one shall look at the ones that are putting in millions of dollars into the candidates of both parties.
Here’s the money
There are a small group of individuals that donate billions of dollars in contributions, now this number is so small that it is known as the 1% of the 1%, due to only there being 31,385 individuals that contribute large sums of numbers to political parties (Drutman,2013: 1). Example of their contributions would be that in the 2012 cycle the 1% of the 1% contributed $1.68 billion, and most of this money went directly to the parties, while more than $10,000 went only to super PACs (Drutman,2013: 6). Furthermore, there is a list of donors that like to help out their favorite candidates or parties, such individuals would be Bob Perry who has “invested” $4.4 million of dollars in political groups, then you have Wayne Hughes that has given $3.28 million to conservative candidates and committees (Sibley, 2011: 1). The list goes on and on, of how many of these rich individuals have donated, though there is a very notable family that has given millions of dollars alone especially in the 2012 elections. Shed Adelson, a casino magnate and his wife donated about $91.8 million alone to Super PACs in 201 (Bowie, Lioz,2013: 10). Nonetheless, these contributions are important especially to the members of Congress, which a majority of them gain funds from them, also this then demonstrates how our political system is infested with outside money, and money that is mostly controlled by a small group of people.
Conclusion
In the end, it is foolish to believe that money does not influence the political system in the United States. Money is not just a form of gift basket to candidates, there is more to it, especially when most of this money derives from the 1% of the 1%. Nonetheless, it will be hard to get rid of money from the system, especially when money has become a bad weed, a weed that is deeply entrenched in the soil of this good land. The only way to remove it, is by one day finding the right tools to kill this bad weed that has entrenched itself in this fertile land.
Citation
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