≈  Can We Take Down the For Sale Sign on America? ≈

🎵 This Land Is Our Land 🎵

I’m told to avoid politics here. Not because I don't have opinions, I have enough opinions to make pretty much anyone uncomfortable about anything, but this Blog’s mission statement is to be “foundationally committed to supporting a lifestyle centered around mindfulness, selfcare, and being active”. But every once in a while something wanders out of the political world and into the mindfulness, self-care, and active-lifestyle neighborhood. When that happens, it's hard to pretend it doesn't live next door.

So, throwing caution to the wind, here's my opening question. Raise your hand if you think ordinary citizens should have more influence over which people represent them in our government than Political Action Committees, nonsensically wealthy individuals, and corporations.

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I'll wait. Take your time. Don’t rush. Think about it. OK, raise your hands, let me see what’s out there 😎. Hmmm. Pretty much everyone. That's what I thought. So why does it feel as though our political system now comes with naming rights, like a football stadium. I keep expecting their clothing to look like NASCAR drivers' uniforms.

The money shows up long before Election Day. We don't simply choose from the people who want to serve, or who we’d like to serve, we choose from the handpicked menu chosen by the people who could afford to get there. Deep-pocketed donors and PACs decide who has a realistic chance of being nominated and elected and thus further their cause, then we get to pick from that carefully financed menu. Democracy à la carte.

So how did this happen. Most people have heard of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Far fewer people can explain it without their eyes glazing over. Here's the Cliff Notes version. A nonprofit organization wanted to spend money promoting an attack ad during the 2008 Presidential election. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations, unions and similar organizations have First Amendment rights to spend unlimited amounts on political advocacy, as long as they don't coordinate directly with a candidate. (Think about that for a second. Define “coordinate directly”. Is that a meeting or does it include just mimicking the candidates talking points. We know the answer to that).

That single decision transformed campaign finance and our Country. The money followed. The power shifted, and ordinary voters have become incidental to the process of governing ourselves.

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For some perspective:

These Citizens United created entities invested (word chosen intentionally) $4.5 Billion in the 2024 elections. PACS alone broke their record and invested $2.7 billion, the top 100 billionaire donors invested $2.6 billion, also setting a record for them. That’s Billion, with a B. These aren’t folks who generally write billion-dollar checks without expecting a strong return.

Here's the part that baffles me. The vast majority of Americans, regardless of their ideological bent, consistently say they want less money in politics. Yet every election cycle more money is spent. It’s like inflation, buying influence costs more each year. It's one of the few things Washington seems remarkably efficient at. If only potholes could attract campaign contributions.

Now here's where the story gets interesting. For years, reformers argued that Citizens United would have to be overturned or the Constitution amended before anything meaningful could change. Not so fast.

Several states are trying something entirely different. Instead of regulating political speech, which Citizens United largely protects, they're looking at something much more fundamental, clever even.

Corporations don't occur naturally. You don't find one grazing in a field. States create them, define their powers, and issue their charters. So some lawmakers began asking a fascinating question. If we create corporations, and we define the powers of a corporation, although Citizens United may have the power to say corporations may speak politically, we have the power to simply say political spending isn't one of the powers granted under a corporate charter.

Hawaii has already acted, and more than a dozen other states are in varying stages of enacting similar legislation. So, after sixteen years of hearing that Citizens United was untouchable, someone finally asked a different question instead of repeating the old one louder. Thinking out of the box. Sometimes that's how progress begins.

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Please indulge my admittedly Pollyanna moment.

If I were handed a magic wand, and history suggests this is unlikely, I would give every candidate that qualifies to run for a particular office exactly the same amount of public campaign funding. I didn’t invent the idea. Theodore Roosevelt proposed publicly funded elections more than a century ago.

No billionaires. No Super PACs. No mysterious nonprofit with a patriotic-sounding name buying twenty-seven million dollars worth of television commercials. Same office. Same budget. Make your case. May the best ideas win. Crazy, I know.

Will that ever happen? Probably not exactly like that. But I do think voters have more power than we sometimes understand. We can stop accepting "that's just how politics works" as though it were a law of physics.

We can support candidates who rely on ordinary donors. We can ask uncomfortable questions. We can force accountability. We can stop shrugging our shoulders and assuming nothing can change and actually get off our butts and do something, get involved.

At some point, "We the People" have to decide whether those words still mean something. If they do, then democracy shouldn't come with premium sponsorship opportunities.

I'd rather see a giant "Not For Sale" sign planted on the National Mall. What say you?

Thanks for listening. I feel much better now. My blood pressure? Jury's still out.

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