A new study makes the amazing discovery that politicians
usually vote conscience—unfortunately it’s the conscience of the rich people
who contribute the most to their campaigns.
In an article titled “Testing Theories of American Politics:
Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens,” Martin Gilens of Princeton and
Benjamin Page of Northwestern analyze 1,779 American opinion studies between
1981 and 2002 that included the income level of the survey participants. Gilens
and Page also looked at the policies advocated by the largest 25 lobbying
groups in the country and the ten industries spending the most on
lobbying. The two professors then
compared what these various groups wanted and what actually passed in legislatures.
Here are some results reported in The Economist¸ the
only mass media outlet to report on the study as of this writing:
·
When lots of wealthy people (more than 80%)
liked a policy, it went into effect 45% of the time.
·
When very few wealthy people (fewer than 20%)
supported a policy, it went into effect 18% of the time.
·
Whether very few of a vast majority of people
with average income wanted a policy did not matter: policies passed 30% of the
time in either case.
·
Interest groups representing the non-wealthy
such as unions have little or no impact on what policies our elected officials
support, vote on and implement.
I imagine if Gilens and Page crunched the numbers since 2010
they’d find that politicians are doing the bidding of the wealthy and ignoring
everyone else even more than they used to.
It was in 2010, of course, when the Supreme Court freed corporate
interests to spend whatever they liked on campaigns in the Citizens United decision.
Campaign spending and the effects of the Citizens United and the more recent McCutcheon v. FEC have remained a major trend of news coverage since
the first laws limiting spending passed in the 1970s.
Isn’t it a bit odd then that only one major media outlet (a smaller one
at that) has covered this major new study? Odder still that a Google New search
revealed a mere 58 articles in total among the tens of thousands of media in
the Google News universe? Wouldn’t you think that the media would pick
up this story faster than you can say “Picketty picked a peck of pickled
Paretos”?
Contributing to campaigns and lobbying are only two of five
ways that business interests and the wealthy control the policy decisions in
the United States. Control of the mass media through ownership is another. We
also can’t forget a fourth way that the wealthy get their way: funding political
and economic research, again with their large war chests of accumulated
capital.
The final way that the rich gain the ear of our elected
officials is by running for office themselves.
The Center for Responsive Politics has found that slightly more than
half of all members of Congress are millionaires. Since the birth of the Republic, rich folk have
always had an inside track whenever they decide to run for office. Michael
Bloomberg, Carly Fiorentina, John Huntsman, John Edwards, Meg Whitman and Mitt
Romney are only the latest generation of the ultra-wealthy to throw their hats
in the ring for elected office. Gores, Kennedys, Roosevelts, Harrimans, Danforths,
Rockefellers and Ross Perot come to mind without an Internet search.
Because of the impact of these other factors, it’s
impossible to conclude how much funding candidates and lobbying contribute to
the stranglehold the wealthy and especially the very wealthy have on the
American political decision-making process.
It will therefore take more than just new campaign finance
limitations to move from a one-dollar-one-vote to a one-person-one-vote model.
We will also need to reinstitute laws that prevent concentration of media
ownership in a few hands. Passing laws
that make campaigns, lobbying organizations and think tanks liable for the
factual lies they tell will also help. But, of course, corporate interests are
trying to get the state laws that do exist about campaign lying to be declared
unconstitutional.
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