Andrew Romanoff on Citizens United versus FEC

-by Andrew Romanoff

If you like the way Washington works, you’re going to love this decision. 

Special interest groups poured $1 billion into the last election.  Today’s ruling just opened the floodgates for billions more.  The Supreme Court said that corporations and other interest groups can spend as much as they want on independent expenditures.   

It’s as if the justices took a look at America’s political system and concluded that special interests don’t have enough power. 

Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority: “This Court now concludes that independent expenditures … do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.  That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt.  And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.” 

The court is wrong.  Americans are losing faith – and for good reason.  As I said on Tuesday, “We’ve put our democracy up for sale.  Congress has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the industries it’s supposed to be regulating.” 

That’s why Congress cuts deals with insurance and drug companies, while the high cost of medical care sends hundreds of thousands of Americans into bankruptcy, and thousands more to an early grave. 

That’s why Congress allows polluters to desecrate our environment and disrupt our climate, when we should be protecting our air and water and ending our addiction to fossil fuel. 

And that’s why Congress rewards Wall Street bankers with taxpayer-funded bonuses, instead of holding them accountable for jeopardizing our savings and capsizing our economy.

The halls of Congress are flooding with corporate cash, and the Supreme Court just destroyed one of the only levees we had left.  If we don’t want our democracy to drown, we should act now: 

1. Congress should stand up to its biggest donors – beginning with those in the financial industry – by enacting the reforms the American people want.  That includes a strong consumer-protection law and to an end to Wall Street’s double-dealing, “heads I win, tails you bail me out” gamesmanship.
2. Congress should pass meaningful campaign finance reform.  I support the Fair Elections Now Act, which would level the playing field in federal races.
3. Every candidate for Congress should refuse to accept contributions from special interest groups – and return the money they’ve already taken.  I am still the only candidate in this race to have made that commitment.

Americans have a right to know: Do our leaders still believe in government “of the people, by the people, for the people”?  The Supreme Court did nothing today to restore faith in that basic principle, but we can.