Three Democratic senators want all campaign finance contribution limits lifted: Tim Green (Florissant), Chuck Graham (Columbia), and Chris Koster (Harrisonville). Tim Green, in fact, introduced the amendment to lift the caps.
Because Koster has taken a hundred thou from Rex Sinquefield, he’s also taking some political heat. KMOX radio interviewed him about that question, and he stood firm for lifting the limits. Here’s the interview if you want to hear it. Republicans–and these three Democrats–like to muddy the waters with the old “we need transparency” canard. Yes, we do, but throwing out all caps on contributions is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
“The public thinks we’re all controlled by money, and we don’t need to do anything more to make that reality or perception,” Bray said. “The public strongly likes the idea of contribution limits. It has expressed that in votes in the past. And we should respect and not resort to indulging ourselves in unlimited contributions.”
Bray argues for legislation that would control the proliferation of PACs and political committees. ….
Here’s an analogy: If people are finding embezzling too easy to get away with, Republicans think it would be wise to make the embezzlement easy to spot … and legal. They figure that if it’s easy to spot, the boss can fire the embezzler. Democrats want to make the embezzlement more difficult to achieve … and illegal.
That’s a no-brainer.
A no-brainer indeed, unless you’re a legislator who prefers to sell yourself and sell the public out.
I’m not being hard on Koster here because he’s a former Republican. We’re glad to have anybody from the other side who sees that Democratic ideas are better. And Koster has charisma that would be put to better use promoting Democratic ideals than pushing Republican selfishness. If he would promote Democratic principles. But how much good does it do Democrats to have Koster switch parties if he still votes to get rid of campaign donation limits?
And by the way, Tim Green and Chuck Graham also need to repent their votes on this issue and push to limit PACs.
Because that’s the solution: limit each party to one PAC.
Jim Trout, who sued over the no-cap-on-contributions law and won, has said that the old law had bugs in it, but that the no-cap solution was no solution.
“Take the bugs out, but don’t use a Sherman Tank to do it,” he said in a PubDef interview last January.
What he means by “bugs” is that current law allows legislative committees to raise ten times as much money as any individual can give and there is no limit on how many legislative committees may be formed. Everybody and his brother can have one. Furthermore, as even Republicans correctly argue, those legislative committees are far less transparent than straight donations.
Trout would like to see two changes in election law. First, each PARTY should be allowed one PAC, with a set amount of donations allowed. That means two PACs in the state instead of dozens. Second, the campaign limits need to be raised. Inflation has taken a huge bite out of the limits passed a dozen years ago. Stamps have gone up, and so has air time.
Senator Koster. Senator Green. Senator Graham. C’mon now. You know that solution would level the playing field so that ordinary voters would get a fair shake for a change. Don’t you?
(Tim Green is pictured above and Chuck Graham is pictured below.)
99.9% of the population is completely unaware of such nuances as funneling money through legislative committees, much less who gives how much to whom. They just know money has completely poisoned the election process and it’s a perfect excuse to turn off, ignore what’s happening and stay apathetic.
How can the message be framed to activate and outrage the public enough to vote the bad guys out and make the good guys who take their places enact real change? (The cost of stamps has gone up? Puleease! How embarassingly lame!)
How can the message be framed to get the braindead populace to vote at all?
Probably by dumbing it down instead of actually following the money, sadly.
Reclaiming the moral high ground by behaving in a self-rightous and authoritative manner has been shown to work more effectively than pointing out facts and figures. (Eeew, those pesky facts are bad enough but figures are a guaranteed turn off to the mainstream, unless maybe it’s a poll on which candidate has the best hairstyle.)
Sorry to seem so condescending towards my fellow-Missourians but a wake-up call is a needed. Much of Missouri needs something strong enough to dislodge them from their complacency, and the details of campaign finance reform are not it. Maybe a 9.9 earthquake on the New Madrid fault?
I’m not saying campaign finance reform isn’t vital. It is. We just have to be more effective in scaring people into thinking about what a true threat the corruption of the political process is to democracy. How do we do that?
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what benefit the Democrats in Missouri have gained from Koster joining the party. Maybe the legislative session that starts next year will show some benefit.
He thinks like a Republican. This is a perfect example. The Democrats are about involving people in the political process and the Republicans are about excluding them. Let’s do some analysis of campaign contributions when the cap was lifted during that short period versus when the cap was on. According to Jay Nixon, the number of people participating in the political process by contributing went down when the caps were off. When the donation amount is unlimited people who don’t have thousands to contribute think “what’s the point”. But when there is a limit, people know that every dollar counts.
So, just like the Republican that he once was, Koster supports a plan that deters participation by the “little people” in favor of a plan that pushes participation by the “important people”.
What’s amazing to me is that people in the state who call themselves progressive support the guy. Our entire system reeks of the corruption of big money – and yet someone like this will be supported.
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That’s all I have to say.
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