Power to the People?

Last Tuesday, Boston voters elected Marty Walsh as mayor—the city’s first new mayor in 20 years. Or did they? While most would assume the people were the ones determining who would fill Mayor Menino’s shoes, this election reflects a wider crisis in campaign finance reform, or lack thereof, that defines contemporary politics. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether Walsh was the better candidate, we must ask the question: How much does the common individual’s vote matter in a political environment in which, last year, 0.40 percent of the national population provided 63.5 percent of all individual campaign contributions?

After the Citizens United v. FEC and Speechnow.org v. FEC decisions in 2010, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporations and unions alike to make unlimited political expenditures through new political action committees called SuperPACs. As a result, money has become even more essential to winning elections. In 2008, 94 percent of Congressional candidates who won their elections raised more money than their opponents.

Throughout Boston’s mayoral campaign, money poured into the city at disturbingly high levels. Paul McMarrow of CommonWealth Magazine calculated that on a per capita basis, “SuperPACs and unions have poured four times more money into Boston than they’ve put into New York, and have spent 13 percent more than the completed contest in Los Angeles.’” According to McMarrow, in Seattle, a city of comparable size to Boston, outside groups spent less than one-fifth of Boston’s total. Professor Robert G. Boatright of Clark University explained one of the reasons these groups invested so heavily in this election: “You can put a lot of money in a local election really fast,” and “score an easy victory really quickly.”

Labor unions, both inside and outside Massachusetts, played an indisputable role in financing Walsh’s campaign. According to a Boston Globe article, “organized labor and other groups have spent $2.5 million on television ads, paid canvassers, mailings, and more.” Failed Boston Mayoral candidate John Connolly, on the other hand, received only $792,000 from outside donations. By August 1, pro-Walsh unions and SuperPACs were outspending every candidate in the field.

We did not write this article to attack Walsh or labor unions, but instead to ask a bigger question about why this country finds this election system acceptable. As the American political process limps along, we cannot let this trend of legally sanctioned corruption to continue. Elections should not be bought and sold. Rather, they should be accessible to candidates from a variety of backgrounds and focused on the constituents’ needs.

Fortunately, we already know how to make that happen. Public financing systems, which exist in 10 states around the country, allow candidates to rely exclusively on small individual donations through matching public funds. In fact, Massachusetts voters opted for such a system by a two to one margin in 1998. In 2003, however, the legislature repealed the law. As members of Harvard College Democracy Matters, a nonpartisan student group committed to combatting the corrupting influence of money in politics, we ask that the Massachusetts legislature reinstate a robust public financing system. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be a priority for the state legislature, where S.323, a public finance bill proposed by State Senator James Eldridge, is languishing in committee.

At the same time, we ask that you stay informed about a Supreme Court case that may have even wider implications for campaign finance reform, McCutcheon v. FEC.  If the Court rules in favor of the plaintiff, certain limits on individual federal campaign donations could disappear entirely, giving wealthy donors unlimited, direct influence over political candidates.

Our broken system, wherein certain people can buy—and are already buying—significant shares in political decision making, stands in opposition to the ideals of democratic equality at the heart of our national identity. It’s time we take back the vote and hold our politicians accountable to governing for all people, not just those with the most money.

Jonah C.  Hahn ’17 lives in Straus Hall. Ivy Z. Yan ’15 is a social studies and studies of women, gender, and sexuality concentrator in Currier House.