No End in Sight…
Do an independent campaign, John Bolton told me a year before the 1980 election.
Puzzled, I frowned, What’s an independent campaign?
No corporation could give an independent campaign a penny, no person could give more than $5000. But 200,000 conservatives across the country had given $25 or $50 contributions to Jesse Helms’ 1978 campaign so we mailed letters asking them to give to Americans for Reagan – money rolled in.
Thirty years rolled by. The Citizens United case, filed by a super-pac, landed in court, judges struck down both contribution limits – suddenly corporations and individuals could give unlimited amounts to independent campaigns.
A reporter asked if I thought that was a good idea? I told him more money meant more ads about issues. Voters would know more – that was a good thing.
But I missed something.
After the Watergate scandal Congress made it harder for politicians to swap favors for contributions by limiting donations to $1,000 per election.
After Citizens United politics rolled backwards.
Today a lobbyist tells a politician, I need your vote to pass this bill – a politician smiles, nods, says, Sure, I agree with you on that…by the way, I’m having a fundraiser. Can you help? and money rolls in to super-pacs from corporations and billionaires.
When they were both ambassadors Thomas Jefferson told John Adams one thing in the Constitution troubled him – if a scoundrel was clever enough to get his hands on a majority of the votes in Congress he could reach into the treasury and grab other people’s money.
He turned out to be right.
Politicians talk a lot about draining the swamp but the same politicians trade favors – corruption’s all over the place in Washington and there’s no end in sight.
*******
Telling stories, in his memoir Carter Wrenn follows The Trail of the Serpent twisting and turning through politics from Reagan to Trump. Order his book from Amazon.
No End in Sight…
Do an independent campaign, John Bolton told me a year before the 1980 election.
Puzzled, I frowned, What’s an independent campaign?
No corporation could give an independent campaign a penny, no person could give more than $5000. But 200,000 conservatives across the country had given $25 or $50 contributions to Jesse Helms’ 1978 campaign so we mailed letters asking them to give to Americans for Reagan – money rolled in.
Thirty years rolled by. The Citizens United case, filed by a super-pac, landed in court, judges struck down both contribution limits – suddenly corporations and individuals could give unlimited amounts to independent campaigns.
A reporter asked if I thought that was a good idea? I told him more money meant more ads about issues. Voters would know more – that was a good thing.
But I missed something.
After the Watergate scandal Congress made it harder for politicians to swap favors for contributions by limiting donations to $1,000 per election.
After Citizens United politics rolled backwards.
Today a lobbyist tells a politician, I need your vote to pass this bill – a politician smiles, nods, says, Sure, I agree with you on that…by the way, I’m having a fundraiser. Can you help? and money rolls in to super-pacs from corporations and billionaires.
When they were both ambassadors Thomas Jefferson told John Adams one thing in the Constitution troubled him – if a scoundrel was clever enough to get his hands on a majority of the votes in Congress he could reach into the treasury and grab other people’s money.
He turned out to be right.
Politicians talk a lot about draining the swamp but the same politicians trade favors – corruption’s all over the place in Washington and there’s no end in sight.
*******
Telling stories, in his memoir Carter Wrenn follows The Trail of the Serpent twisting and turning through politics from Reagan to Trump. Order his book from Amazon.