Who’s Funding Elections: It’s All About the Money?

In this political year, the voice that says “We need to get the money out of politics” is notably silent. It’s mainly a Democratic voice, when we hear it. The Democrats’ nominee, Kamala Harris, is ahead in money-raising now, so the idea of getting money out of politics has been set aside.

Late in September, the Washington Post reported that in August, Kamala Harris raised four times as much cash as Donald Trump. In her first two months in the race, she had raised more than a billion dollars. Some of the Harris cash now pays for TV commercials that slams Donald Trump as the candidate of the super-rich.

Is that right? Forbes magazine has tracked the political statements and donations of more than 100 billionaires. It reports that 76 of these moneybags have come out for Harris and 49 have come out for Trump. Elon Musk is “all in” for Trump (to the grief of his Tesla dealers). Of our own Washington state billionaires, Bill Gates is a Democrat, and Jeff Bezos (who is not really “our own” anymore), was said a decade ago to be a libertarian. Neither has endorsed, but employees at Microsoft, Amazon, and Blue Origin have donated more to Harris. Gates’ ex-wife Melinda has become a major donor, giving $13 million to pro-Harris groups.

I’m not hearing Seattle progressives complain about all the money going to their side. If it was the Koch family dumping money on Trump, I’d be hearing about rich people “buying elections.” I recall the noise Kshama Sawant made against capitalist cash when Amazon dumped a million dollars into Seattle city council races, mainly to defeat her. Which it didn’t. I heard no similar protest against her nationwide network of left-wing donors, who were funding her Seattle campaigns from Cambridge, Mass., and Oakland, Calif.

The voice calling to “get the money out of politics” is quiet now, but we will hear it again. That voice originates from the candidates themselves, particularly the ones who are struggling.

Candidates want to win. They want the status, the responsibility, the power. Some of them love the speechifying, the cheers, the beseeching crowds, and some don’t. But the other part — hours on the phone, cold-calling donors for money, starting with their friends, is no fun. Much of their job, if they win office, is to bring home government money for the causes they favor or for others in their party. These dialers for dollars can’t help but think, “We should have a government program for political campaigns.”

That’s getting public money into politics. Chasing the private money out would be more difficult. If you forbid donations to the candidate, donors create their own organizations. To limit these “independent expenditures” raises a First Amendment issue.

The left wants to restrict the First Amendment as it applies to donations. Their mantra is, “Money is not speech and corporations are not people.” So insists a Bernie Sanders web page. But what is an election campaign if not political speech? And for the government to restrict the amount of money political candidates can have, is to limit their speech.

Consider a hypothetical. If a law were passed to limit how much individuals could donate to a church, supporters might say, “We’re taking the money out of religion. We’re not interfering with your freedom of worship. Money is not religion.” But a law like that would be a violation of religious freedom. When people say, “Money is not speech,” that’s the kind of dubious argument they’re making.

Money is like a neutral paint base. It takes on the color of what it funds.

 When the Bernie Bros say, “Corporations are not people,” they are arguing that a corporation should be denied the right to speak. If you argue the point, they’ll say, “A corporation can’t vote, because it’s not a person. It shouldn’t have First Amendment rights, either.” But a corporation can buy and sell, sue or be sued, hire and fire, own a bank account and pay bills. It can take a position on a matter of public importance, sending someone out to announce it.

So can a union, which also cannot vote.  And in 2010 the Supreme Court decided in the famous Citizens United case that the First Amendment applies to corporations and unions both, and also to trade associations, churches, hospitals, clubs, and groups like the National Rifle Association or Planned Parenthood. Progressives grumble about this decision, but it makes a lot of sense. The First Amendment does not allow government to pick and choose who can speak.

The argument for getting money out of politics tends to assume that the money determines who wins. And more often than not, the candidate with the most money does win. In 2020, Joe Biden outspent Donald Trump, and he won. In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama outspent John McCain and Mitt Romney, and he won. In 2004, George W. Bush outspent John Kerry, and he won. But recall these races. Did Biden have public support in 2020 because of the money? Did Obama win in 2008 because of the money? Or did they attract the money because they had public support? Some of both, probably, but more of the second.

In 2016, Hilary Clinton lost the election after outspending Donald Trump by several hundred million dollars. And in the contest now under way, Kamala Harris is outspending Donald Trump by more than Clinton did. If she wins, will she have “bought the election”? I doubt even Trump would say that.

Who wins is not the only issue with contributions. There is the issue of the potential buying of favors, which is why we have mandatory disclosure. The web page Open Secrets lists the top contributors to each campaign. Each includes relatives, owners, employees, and political action committees.

For Trump, the top five are:

       For Harris, the top five are:

Timothy Mellon is the grandson of Andrew Mellon, who was Calvin Coolidge’s secretary of the treasury a century ago. That’s clear enough. But most of the entries above are just names for other groups. America First PAC is mostly funded by Make America Great Again Inc., which is a “Super PAC.” Bloomberg LP is funded by several groups, including Everytown-Demand a Seat PAC, a Super Pac for gun control.

The disclosure could be a lot better, but is the money itself bad? My complaint with the campaigns is that they wallow in nastiness and irrelevancies — hush-money to a porn star, insults to cat ladies and the threat of dog-eating Haitians, on and on. I listen to the talking heads on television and think, “This is a hell of a way to fill the Oval Office.”

You can blame the candidates, the news media, the culture, ourselves. The money does feed what we’re all doing, but is the money the real problem? The money funds these campaigns, but for most of us, it’s not our money. It’s somebody else’s. You can imagine other ways of running elections, but for the majority of us, it’s a pretty good deal — if you can stand those ads on television.