The Guilded Age

Here's a letter I'm posting to my representatives. Feel free to cut and paste.

Dear Senator/Congressman:

Events of the past year including the recent round of state primary elections have made me increasingly concerned about the role that money plays in our nation’s electoral politics. I am worried about the Supreme Court’s apparent intention, manifested in several recent decisions, to neuter any effort on the part of the states to limit the distorting effects of corporate funds and individual fortunes upon our elections. If it is the case, as it seems to be, that millions spent on television advertising can tip the balance in an election and, what’s more, that the requirement that they raise and spend millions in order to compete with rich individuals and big corporate spenders keeps many worthy, non-wealthy candidates from entering politics in the first place, to the degree that we are unable to regulate the ways and amounts in which money is spent in our elections, our democracy is damaged.

I won’t waste your time with any legal or philosophical arguments as to why the Supreme Court is wrong on these or related matters, though I do believe that there are several such arguments to be made. Rather, I would encourage you to take up the mantle of campaign finance reform and pass the legislation required to counter Citizens United v. FEC and the Court’s other similarly noxious rulings. If a campaign finance bill can be crafted that answers the Court’s concerns and at the same time restores or, better, improves upon McCain-Feingold, then do it. If the only way to skin the campaign finance cat is to pass a constitutional amendment, then do that.

America, it seems, has entered a second Gilded Age ushered in by George W. Bush and his Republican Congress, now abetted by the Republican-majority Supreme Court, by obstructionist Republicans in the Senate, and by a few Democrats besides. The first Gilded Age was bad for democracy and bad for the common man. So far it doesn’t appear that in either respect the second will be much better.

Kind regards,
Aaron Walton