To Ensure the Safety and Security of Our Nation, We Need to End Foreign Political Spending
By Jacob Brown, American Promise Development Coordinator
As we reflect on Independence Day, I hope to give you yet another reason to support our proposed amendment: national security. If you attended our National Citizen Leadership Conference this year, you may have attended a panel about this topic moderated by our own Deputy Political Director, Alan LaPolice. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, and recent conversations at American Promise, I want to take this opportunity to dive a little deeper.
Let’s start with something we all know: Election security is national security. Elections should be decided by Americans, funded by Americans, and be protected on both fronts by our immense national security apparatus. Unfortunately, these principles have been eroded over the last decade in the name of the First Amendment, and we at American Promise hope to shore these up through our amendment. Let’s take a look at three reasons this amendment is necessary to reinforce our democracy from a national security perspective.
First, according to Open Secrets, “it’s impossible to say how much foreign money is influencing our elections.” The law states that “only American citizens (and immigrants with green cards) can contribute to federal politics,” but because of Citizens United there are glaring loopholes in this system. For example, “a foreign donor could transfer money to an American-based shell corporation, or one in an offshore tax haven, and have the shell corporation make the donation to the 501(c)(4).” Compounding our problems is the gutting of the IRS over the last decade, so that “even if the tax-exempt group were audited by the IRS, it would be nearly impossible to determine the original source of the money.” At this juncture, we don’t know how much money is flowing into our elections and from where the money originates. That is a recipe for corruption, foreign interference, and public distrust in elections.
Second is the continued gutting of regulations protecting the democratic process. I personally have not heard much media coverage of the recent Supreme Court decision: Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, but I think it is worth discussing relative to our work. Unsurprisingly, this suit was brought by a think tank funded by the Koch Family — the same funders of Citizens United. In the ruling, the court struck down a California law requiring nonprofits to report to the state Attorney General any donors over $5,000 or 2% of the organization’s total donations due to “potential harassment.” The effect of this could be massive as state and federal election laws could be targeted next. Rick Hasen, a law professor at UC Irvine states that “it will be much harder to sustain campaign finance disclosure laws going forward.” These decisions have shown that election reform is trending in the wrong direction in the courts and require a permanent grassroots solution, like our amendment, to turn the tide.
Third, politicians have become more brazen in soliciting or accepting (unknowingly or not) election assistance from foreign adversaries in whatever form that may take: money, details about the opposition party, or an army of internet trolls to spread disinformation. We saw this in 2016, as the Trump campaign did not overtly collude with the Russian disinformation machine, but disinformation favoring Trump flooded almost every social media platform. We saw this leading up to 2020 as Rudy Giuliani was dispatched to Ukraine on a fact-finding mission to blemish Joe Biden, President Trump vaguely threatened conditions on aid to Ukraine if they did not participate, and ambassadors were removed from their posts for whistleblowing.
Furthermore, every attempt to reel in this slippery slope has stalled; our partner and advocate Jamie Raskin has brought H.R. 746, or the “Get Foreign Money out of U.S. Elections Act,” to the house twice now without any support from across the aisle. National Security is a bipartisan issue and requires all hands on deck.
Finally, we have to consider who stands to benefit from the status quo? Currently, it is the politicians filling their war chests and our international adversaries: China and Russia. While I do not claim that dark money in politics is causal to the political strife we have seen over the last decade, it certainly seems correlated. The value to our adversaries in maintaining this porous system of political kleptocracy is to continue sowing discord around the country and ensuring that progress and governing is slowed to a trickle of its normal efficiency.
Democracy is under assault across the world; the authoritarian leaders in China and Russia would like the world to believe that our form of democracy is untenable because there are too many opinions, freedoms, and liberties to govern effectively. I disagree and I’m sure you do too. The problem is that we have been bogged down in a fundraising contest between the parties to maintain power instead of substantive governing.
I say to Congress: pass this amendment, protect our democracy, and show the world that we can still lead by example. If not, we will have no footing to stand on about election integrity around the world. Let us not forget that Vladimir Putin was elected, albeit quite fraudulently, through the democratic process. Authoritarians almost always seize power through plebiscites and without a transparent and accountable process here we cannot call on other actors to do the same.
American Promise is prepared to solve this crisis. It terrifies me that there is no way to know how much money is flowing into our elections from foreign donors. Any amount is too much. Let us stop and remember what Americans resolved 245 years ago — to govern ourselves, freely and fairly, without foreign intervention. We must pass this amendment to safeguard this democracy, and I am glad you have joined us in that mission.
