Campaign Finance Reform: The Missing Piece Of Tonight’s Democratic Debate
We needed Lessig on the stage.
Weed. College affordability. Income inequality. Black Lives Matter. Even Hillary’s “damn emails.”
The barrage of hard-hitting questions posed by CNN’s highly effective moderators in tonight’s Democratic Debate seem to have addressed all of the major issues — save one.
The tens of millions of dollars that got tonight’s five candidates a podium on the stage was conspicuously absent from the dialogue. Senator Bernie Sanders’ introduction, in which he named campaign finance as one of the most pressing issues facing America gave me hope that it would feature prominently on its own, but the only instances when any candidate (Sanders included) referenced the issue were in passing mentions of Citizens United (one of liberals’ favorite anti-conservative buzzwords), the many ills of Wall Street, and who does (and does not) have a super PAC.
Particularly in light of the New York Times’ damning revelation that half of all campaign contributions in the presidential election thus far came from only 158 families, the fact that two and a half-hour program did not allocate time to discuss campaign financing felt less like an oversight and more like a deliberate omission.
As did the absence of Lawrence Lessig, the single-issue presidential contender who entered the race with the goal to fix the way money influences politics.
The Harvard Law professor has faced significant barriers to entering the main arena after meeting his $1 million fundraising goal from small donors, his prerequisite for entering the race. Because the Democratic Party won’t recognize him as an official candidate, he’s had to fight for the right to even be included in the polls that determined who would be invited to tonight’s debate. In an interview with TIME, Lessig suggested that the DNC’s attitude might be because they don’t want a race dominated by “outsiders” like in the GOP.
Truthfully, the DNC has nothing to worry about. Lessig isn’t going to win the election; single-issue campaigns like his just don’t gain enough traction with the general public. But the presence of such campaigns (like the one run by the Rent Is Too Damn High party founder Jimmy McMillan) are necessary disruptive forces to the established method of politicking (read: privately soliciting money from a few while claiming to represent the interests of everyone) at a time when even self-professed progressives like Hillary Clinton are unwilling to address the undue influence that corporations and the ultra-wealthy have over what goes on in government.
Lessig’s presence tonight would have forced a far more comprehensive discussion about how money buys politics, and in turn our elected representatives. At a time when money is one of the biggest predictors of who will win an election, the public cannot expect that the candidates for whom the current system has delivered tens of millions of dollars into their campaign war chests will voluntarily advocate for that system’s reform.
Perhaps the DNC isn’t accepting Lessig’s candidacy because they don’t want the conversation to veer off course. The debate wasn’t particularly revelatory or exciting (but that might be because I’m comparing it to the most recent GOP debate), which isn’t helpful to voters who want to hear the candidates say something that hasn’t been said in their scripted campaign stops but does make a primary season more manageable to a party that wants to keep the presidency and avoid any curve balls that could create factionalism.
There’s also the uncomfortable fact that Democrats benefit from wealthy individuals and special interests nearly as much as Republicans. Labor unions (from which Sanders has received a large portion of donations) may represent working Americans, but their policy positions are just as targeted as those of corporations.
Bernie and Hillary’s repeated declarations of being pro-middle class and vows to reign in “the excesses of capitalism” won’t be anything but words if the entities whose money put them in office aren’t from the middle class and reap huge profits from a deregulated market. Before Democrats can truly say that they represent working American families, they must address where the resources working to put them in office are coming from, with Lessig in the lead.
Opinion Editor Ashley Yang is a moderate recently nudged left by the antics of the GOP. Reach her here, or follow her on Twitter here.
