Defining "Corruption"
What does the word “corruption” mean today in the United States?
According to the 2020 edition of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, it has two meanings: 1) impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle and 2) the process of rotting. Both have serious political and economic impact on our societal health and stability.
An array of synonyms are listed for “corruption,” including: debasement, debauchery, decadence, degeneracy, degeneration, degradation, demoralization, depravity, dissipation, dissoluteness, perversion, evil, immorality, sinfulness and wickedness. There is no indication that the violation of some legal statute is required in order for an act or behavior to be considered a form of corruption. The current conservative majority of the US Supreme Court (SCOUS), however, is determined to embed that requirement to the detriment of a national code of ethical conduct.
In January 2010, SCOUS overturned more than 100 years of restrictions on election spending by corporations in its 5-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, claiming any limitations on “independent political spending by corporations and other groups violates their First Amendment right to free speech.” One of the arguments made by the majority was that independent political spending (i.e., political spending not controlled by the candidate nor specifically endorsing the candidate) could not be correlated with corrupting influence on government, even when funded by wealthy corporations.
Ironically, this decision came in a case involving an electioneering documentary distributed in a campaign two years earlier---one long since decided. Citizens United has had an extraordinary impact on campaign financing ever since.
Following the precedent established by Citizens United, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Speechnow v. FEC (March 2010), that under the First Amendment a political action committee (PAC) may accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions as long as they do not contribute to candidates or coordinate their activities with candidates or parties. Thus were created Super PACs.
The basic premise of such entities is bizarre. What rational individual, corporation or union contributes large sums of money for “campaign” spending without regard for the election outcome? Allowing unlimited contributions for campaign activities gives those with outsized resources a significant advantage over the average American in influencing political decision makers
Super PACs have led not only to an explosion in the amount of money spent on political campaigns in America, but also to a shift from spending by political candidates to spending by so-called independent groups. Independent spending roughly doubled between 2008 and 2012 to $150 million, but it reached $400 million in 2016. In that year there were 17 candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, undoubtedly encouraged by the loosening of restrictions on campaign contributions and the growing concentration of wealth in this country.
According to Forbes magazine, America has 735 billionaires today worth more than $4.7 trillion. A decade ago, there were only 424 worth less than half as much.
Much of the growth in billionaire incomes has occurred since the start of the Covid crisis in March 2020. Identified as the world’s richest man today, Elon Musk has seen his wealth increase over 600 percent. On the basis of how he has handled his alleged purchase of Twitter, even with all his wealth, Musk has trouble deciding how to spend his fortune.
Given the fact that Super PACs are subject to few regulations and are often able to raise money anonymously, their activities flunk any reasonable standard for transparency and feed public suspicions that they are not motivated by a sense of public service. Their existence simply erodes further the confidence Americans have in their government.
And SCOUS apparently will continue its assault. The latest injury allowed Texas Senator Ted Cruz to recover a $260,000 loan he made to his senatorial campaign in 2018.
At issue was a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act barring a campaign from using more than $250,000 in post-election funds to repay a candidate’s loans to fund his campaign. Any amount above the $250,000 ceiling could be repaid if done so within 20 days after the election.
The rationale for the regulation was to avoid the potential for corruption. Returning a winning candidate’s loan represents a windfall no matter its original source. Cruz deliberately waited beyond the 20-day window after the election in order to challenge the law, and the Republican majority on SCOUS ruled in his favor.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the regulation may result in some candidates not recouping their loans after an election which “in turn may deter some candidates from loaning money to their campaigns when they otherwise would, reducing the amount of political speech.”
Justice Elena Kagan defended the law, saying that limits on repaying large campaign loans with post-election donations are designed to avoid “both corruption and the appearance of corruption of the quid pro quo kind.” The donations in question according to Kagan, “personally enrich those already elected to office.”
The average American finds it demoralizing to watch the flood of campaign expenditures in current primaries and to accept that more than half the members of Congress are millionaires. SCOUS needs to be more aware that democracy requires citizens trust their government. They should accept the wisdom of one of their great predecessors, Louis Brandeis:
“We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”