Considering the widening cultural and political divides in
American society that were on full display in Congress during the first half of
the 2010s, uncovering a general will stretching across partisan lines as well
as across a the continent and beyond would proffer a rare opportunity for
significant legislative output. Furthermore, such a case would enable us to
assess whether the elected representatives of the People were indeed representing, and, if so, whom. That is
to say, the political distance between
the People and their political class could be measured. I contend as respecting
the stance of the People on money in politics and public governance, much unity
and, unfortunately, much distance can be discerned, at least as of the end of
May 2015 when a New York Times/CBS News telephone-poll was taken.
Evincing a unity striking not only in its singularity, but
also given the partisanship on the topic then in the Congress, more than four
in five Americans said that “money plays too great a role in political
campaigns,” and two-thirds said “that the wealthy have more of a chance to
influence the elections process than other Americans.”[1]
By a significant margin, Americans said “they reject the argument . . . that
political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.” That
even self-identified Republicans were evenly split suggests that The New York Times does not overstep in generalizing
to characterize Americans, rather than the poor or Democrats, for instance, as
rejecting the money-as-speech judicial doctrine. In fact, 75 percent of
self-identified Republicans said they support more disclosure by outside
groups, and Republicans were almost as likely as Democrats to favor further
restrictions on campaign donations.
Nevertheless, Republican Congressional leaders had “blocked
legislation” to require more disclosure by political nonprofit groups that were
not required to reveal their respective donors. Furthermore, “some prominent
Republicans” in Congress were calling “for legislation to eliminate existing
caps on contributions.” As startling as the amount of daylight visible between
the political class and the rank and file in the Republican Party itself is,
the distance between the governed and their governors is even more grave,
considering that the people doing the legislating happened to be elected.
A"Rockefeller Republican" turned populist? He stands alone in the rain outside the White House. (Getty Images)
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that The New York Times observes from the
poll that “Americans appear to be as inured to the role of money in campaigns
as they are disillusioned by it, expressing a deep cynicism about the
willingness of elected officials to fight the system they inhabit or to change
the rules they have already mastered.” A majority of Americans were pessimistic
that campaign rules would be improved. The conflict of interest that Americans
believed that their elected representatives were actively exploiting dovetails
with the role of money in politics at the time because the representatives and
their “paymasters” had written the rules! At the very least, both parties knew
how to “work the rules” in their respective, and, mostly joint, interests.
In business theory, “agency costs” are incurred by someone
(i.e., the principal) who has hired another person (i.e., the agent) to the
extent that the latter does not do the will of the former. The principal not
only loses out because the job isn’t getting done, but also must spend
additional time and energy to get the agent to get the job assigned done.
Perhaps the agent finishes the job, but skews it to be more in the agent’s own
benefit. If the principal’s benefit is less as a result, this loss is also an
agency cost. This theory can be applied to politics.
When a supermajority of an electorate want a law passed but
those voters’ own elected representatives (i.e., agents) refuse, the principals
incur agency costs. Moreover, when a People want one system of governance and
the political class ensconced in another one—the current one in which that
class benefits (and therefore has a conflict of interest in)—the People suffers
agency costs. In terms of democratic theory, the governmental sovereignty is
suspect rather than legitimate from the standpoint of popular sovereignty
(i.e., the general will of the People as a people).
I contend that the political class’s continued exploitation
of the conflict of interest is a significant factor in the distance that had
widened between the governed and the elected governors. “Candidates for
political office are not in it just to serve the people; they also want the
prestige and the perks,” said one respondent in the poll. The New York Times reports that in follow-up interviews,
respondents “described political leaders as a kind of class apart.” Mixing “public
life and personal enrichment,” elected officials were in the habit of taking “frequent
flights on the private planes of billionaires” and going on “junkets paid for
by corporate lobbyists and foreign governments,” all while ostensibly doing the
people’s business.
Moreover—and this is where it gets really important—some of
those polled “expressed a profound alienation from their own government. They
said they did not expect elected officials to listen to them. They described
politics as a province of the wealthy.” Incredibly, “they said they sometimes
did not feel informed enough to come to an opinion about the candidates.” In
spite of “being inundated with political advertising,” they said they were
repulsed by the billions of dollars” behind it. In short, a significant part at
least of the electorate had tuned out, given up, and lost hope. It would appear
that popular sovereignty can commit suicide, rather than continue to endure a
sordid political class—humiliatingly the People’s agents—and the related self-aggrandizing deep pockets who
shamelessly put their private interest above the public weal. Abstractly
stated, popular sovereignty can simply choose to give up, rather than even
recognize the bill that would be required to pay in order to take back the
wayward governmental sovereignty. I suppose the latter can be like a black
hole, sucking in power and money even as the universe itself becomes unhinged
from its outer walls and begins to collapse into itself. So narrow-minded, so
greedy with its ruddy, fat hands, can a black hole be that it consumes the very
conditions of its existence.
Incremental change, or “reform,” is not the way to correct
such a dysfunctional system as a political class at odds with its principals
(as well as principles) in a democracy; the class’s paymasters would only
subvert the “reforms” in all but name. The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act of
2010, for example, merely tweaked with the problem of systemic risk by raising
reserve requirements on the largest banks; the proposal to break up the five
largest banks predictably got nowhere. The People were led to believe that
holding more in reserves would make a difference in an inter-bank credit freeze
an amid short-selling. Meanwhile, Wall Street would continue to fund the
Congressional re-election campaigns of the law’s “writers” and supporters.
The superiority of the popular sovereign (i.e., the People)
over the entrenched governmental sovereign (i.e., the political class) is
evinced in the poll in that 39% said fundamental changes are needed in the way
political campaigns are funded in the United States, and a whopping 46% said
the system should be completely rebuilt.
That, my friends, is an astonishing find in American politics. Almost half of
the popular sovereign believed that the way its agents are selected had to be
completely rebuilt. Beyond mere statute, such a “big picture” standpoint is
constitutional in nature. Unfortunately, the political class would almost
inevitably have its say, even a veto, on any proposed constitutional amendments—even
any in which elected officials have a conflict of interest. The wish to
completely rebuild the way campaigns for elected office are run may be like
hoping that a universe take back its power from the black hole at ground zero already
dominating even space and time.
[1] Nicholas
Confessore and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Poll
Shows Americans Favor Overhaul of Campaign Financing,” The New York Times, June 2, 2015. All of the quotes in this essay
are from this source.
