Purpose: To illustrate how our electoral system is manipulated and made dysfunctional by corporate power and suggest grassroots solutions citizens can take to alleviate the problem. 

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Materials

Readings: Justice Rising, Spring 2005, Creating Honest Elections: Problems, People, Solutions; Summer 2011, Money in Democracy, Pt 1: Reclaiming Our Elections; Fall 2016, The People's Vote Must Count
Handouts: Questions &Talking Points, Article Rankings

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Paradigm: The common narrative is that our elections are honest and fair. This class brings participants face to face with the reality that money power is choosing the candidates, putting initiatives on the ballot, and manipulating the electoral process to produce results most beneficial to corporate and monied elites. 

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Context: Campaign finance has long been the central public concern about corporate money in politics. The roots of this crisis go back more than a century to the 1883 elimination of the spoils system— where government employees contributed to their party’s campaign committees in order to keep their jobs. 

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This change occurred as huge monopolistic trusts were funneling mountains of cash into the coffers of wealthy corporations. As public opinion turned against trusts and public officials began enacting public policies that curbed corporate power, it became apparent to corporate executives that corporations had to take control of public-policy making. The vacuum left by the elimination of the spoils system offered them the perfect opportunity. 

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As the graphic at the beginning of this class description shows, money dominated the 1896 Presidential election. By that time the Populist Movement, at the heart of the pushback against corporate 9 

monopoly power, had elected governors and congressional candidates, and its Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryant, was running as the Democratic Party standard bearer. 

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Corporate titans realized that their privileged position could be destroyed if Bryant became President. John D. Rockefeller‘s Cleveland, Ohio corporate cohort, Mark Hanna, headed up a powerful corporate-funded political campaign for Republican Presidential nominee, Ohio Governor William McKinley. It raised far more money than had ever been raised before and out-fundraised the Democrats five to one. The ability of corporations to flood the election with money allowed them to set public policy for years to come and established a fundraising model dependent on corporate money that increasingly dominates our elections.

 

The Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s highlighted the corruption of the corporate-funded campaign system and pushed legislators to pass campaign finance reform laws. Within a few years, however, the Supreme Court abrogated those laws. In Buckley v Valeo (1976) and First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti (1977), the court declared that money is equal to speech and gave corporations political speech rights, making it unconstitutional to limit corporate campaign spending.  

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Republicans were the first to take advantage of this change, spending 10 times as much as the Democrats in the 1980 Congressional elections, taking control of the Senate for the first time in 26 years, gaining 35 seats in the House, and electing Republican Ronald Reagan to the Presidency. 

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Elizabeth Drew, chronicling this change for the New Yorker, pointed out that this push for money in political campaigns unfortunately led elected officials to spend an overwhelming amount of time raising campaign funds, giving us “politicians who are exhausted, who can’t think clearly, who don’t think about the broad questions…Who don’t lead.” 

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The Democrats cashed in on corporate funding during the Clinton years. This achievement allowed them to drop their dependence on the working class and labor unions. As Thomas Frank points out, “A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment.” As wages have fallen and stock markets have surged, no major party is protecting the working class or confronting corporate power. 

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The Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010 essentially eliminated any restrictions on corporate money in elections, ratcheting up corporate spending in elections several notches. Corporations can now influence elections by paying into “independent” non-profits that spend vast sums of money to both support and oppose candidates. Much of the money cannot be traced to its source. 

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In 2012, millions of corporate dollars were spent on negative campaigning. Negative campaigning discourages citizens from voting, which is also part of the corporate strategy. Corporate-funded voter suppression and gerrymandering of electoral districts compromise the integrity of our elections, and corporate electronic voting machines threaten the veracity of the vote count.

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Our electoral problems have risen to such an extent that the Supreme Court is now considering the constitutionality of gerrymandering while other courts are knocking down flagrantly oppressive voter ID laws. Staying one step ahead of these setbacks, corporate-friendly politicians are deleting thousands of names from voter rolls. 

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Corporate influence over our election system has become so flagrant that a series of popular efforts has arisen to counter corporate power in our elections. Move to Amend came into being on the day of the Citizens United decision. Almost 500,000 people have joined their effort to take away court-given corporate rights and to specify that money is not speech. 

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Their 28th amendment to the Constitution is necessary if the important effort promoting publicly financed elections is ever going to be successful. The non-profit Public Campaign facilitates publicly financed elections. There are also extensive efforts by many groups, including the Sunlight Foundation, to bring transparency into the electoral process. Finally, the National Election Defense Coalition and many other citizen groups are coming together to create honest elections and end voter suppression. 

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Activities: Stories are the best teaching tools. People remember them. The best stories are your stories derived from your personal experiences. Come up with stories that reflect the information in the historical context above and use them to start a good class discussion.

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It is also good to introduce some current stories on this topic. There is always something new.  A good source for this type of article is the Center for Responsive Politics’ website www.opensecrets.org, the premier site for researching money in politics. For articles on election integrity, check out Bev Harris’s Black Box Voting, Jonathan Simon’s Election Defense Alliance or the National Election Defense Coalition.  The New York Times has also done surprisingly comprehensive reporting on corporate money in politics.

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We have put together several handouts for you to use in this class. First is a chart on the impacts of Citizens United that shows the spiraling increase of money coming into elections. Second is a chart that shows the overwhelming dominance that Wall Street maintains over campaign finance. You can either use these charts or go to The Center for Responsive Politics website at opensecrets.org to get more up-to-date information and make your own charts.

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You can also show the class one or several videos on elections. The best one is probably David Cobb’s Crash Course on corporations and elections. The video of David Daley discussing gerrymandering and the video of the Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also provide interesting information. Use all of these to stimulate engaging discussion in the class.

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At the midway point in the class, take a break. In the second half of the class, use the questions on elections to stimulate discussion. Have students choose which questions they want to discuss. You, the facilitator, should also pick a few questions you think are most important to discuss. Use the Notes on Answers to help craft the discussions around each question. You may not get through all of the questions, but the discussion should be intriguing. Class participation is often the most engaging part of the class. 

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At the end of the class, pass out the list of books people can read if they want more in-depth knowledge on corporate money in elections. Finally, pass out the questions and talking points as well as the article rankings for the next class on policymaking, lobbying, and the revolving door.

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Let us know if you have any questions about all of this. The day after the class, email the questions and reading priorities for the next class to everyone and include a current article on lobbying, think tanks, or the revolving door.

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The day before the next class, send a reminder email that the class is coming up and again attach the questions and ranking and maybe another piece on corporate power and our public-policy-making process.