Jolly's folly: Lawmakers still beholden to funders (by Lawrence Lessig).
Rep. David Jolly, a Republican from Indian Shores, FL, has generated enormous enthusiasm for his Stop Act — a proposal to ban members of Congress from personally asking people for money. 60 Minutes did a special segment about the idea. That followed an incredibly powerful piece by comedian John Oliver describing with perfect clarity just how absurd the system has become.
From my own survey of research, we know that members of Congress can spend anywhere between 30 and 70% of their time raising money. Even at the low end of that estimate, this should astonish anyone. Critics are wrong to call this a "do-nothing Congress." To the contrary, it does an incredible amount — of fundraising.
It is simple corruption — not of the members of Congress through bribery, but of the system itself. It is a corruption of the representative democracy promised to us by the Framers.
Jolly's reform purports to attack this problem; "staying the course," Jolly insists, "is no longer an option." He's right. Congress has a real problem, and fundamental reform is desperately needed.
But Jolly's proposal is the most cynical example of fraudulent reform that I have ever seen. No doubt, the Stop Act would make Jolly's job — and the job of other members of Congress — better. By law, none of them would have to spend their time engaged in the misery of direct fundraising. By law, they would all effectively collude to leave the fundraising to their staffs.
Yet this would change none of the causes of the corruption of Congress. For the piper would still be paid by the very same people. Members of Congress would still be dependent on the very same special interests to fund their campaigns. Indeed, Jolly's staffers have spread the word across Capitol Hill that the power of the big funders wouldn't really change with his so-called "reform." All that would change is that congressmen wouldn't have to do the dirty work.
Once again, we have a politician pretending to fix the system when in fact, he's just working hard to make his life easier. So long as corporations, special interests, lobbyists, unions and the wealthy pay the piper, the piper will play their tune. The only way to change that is for Congress to give back to us, the voters, the means to fund congressional campaigns.
That's why Republicans like Richard Painter, former ethics czar to George W. Bush, have proposed a $200 tax rebate to every voter to fund campaigns, so that members would be dependent on voters, and not special interests. That would be real change, unlike the folly that Jolly is pressing.
What Florida needs — what America needs — are politicians with the courage to fight for real change, not gimmicks that would actually change nothing.
At: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-david-jolly-reform-fundraising-050716-20160506-story.html
