On Tuesday November 1st, Trevor Porter, a former Chairmen of the Federal Election Commission, and Harvard graduate, spoke at the annual political science convocation about money in politics here at the College of Charleston. Porter is also the founder and President of the Campaign Legal Center and Senior Advisor to the reform group Issue One as well as head of the political law practice at the Washington firm of Caplin & Drysdale. Porter has been described by the American Bar Association Journal as “hands down one of the top lawyers in the country on the delicate intersection of politics, law, and money.”
Porter began his lecture on Tuesday by announcing one thing that Republicans and Democrats can both agree on right now: we need a fundamental change in in our campaign system. Porter compares statistics of the percentage of Americans that think government is corrupt, with the percentage of citizens of other countries who feel the same way about their own governments, and the results were astounding. Approximately 75% of Americans believe that the government is corrupt, in comparison to other democracies ranging from 15-20%. In addition, 79% of Americans believe that government is run by a few big interests.
One of the contributing factors to this widespread belief is that the government is dominated by the interests of the wealthy, and this may be true. One example of this issue is the amount of money needed to run a campaign. The system favors the wealthy in that only those who can afford a multi-million dollar campaign can run for a high office, and it has only gotten worse in time. In 1976, the average amount of money spent on a presidential election was 174 million. In 2012, the average had risen to 2.22 billion. The big question is, where is all of this money coming from?
The problem is, it is obviously not coming from the average American, it is coming from the elite. In fact, only 0.25% of Americans donate to campaigns, and only 257 individuals accounted for 74% of all super PAC donations. Because of this, our members of congress are extremely dependent on a select few donors, and are extremely responsive to the top 10%. Another problem is that there are policy loopholes that allow “dark money”, or money coming from unidentified sources, to make its way to campaigns. This creates a lack of transparency, which in turn creates distrust.
Porter does offers a few possible solutions to this. Porter suggests that we could stop allowing Congress to fundraise during office hours, so that they could spend more time legislating. He suggest that we enforce current laws regarding donations, and make dark money donors fully disclosed. He also suggests possibly incorporating the “voter voucher” so that the people themselves could take control by funding the campaigns they support directly and equally.
In light of recent events, it is clear to all Republicans and Democrats alike, the people have not been represented properly, and something has to change.
Porter, Trevor. "Money in Politics." College of Charleston's 2016 Annual Political Science Convocation. College of Charleston, Charleston. 1 Nov. 2016. Lecture.
