Posts Tagged by campaign finance reform
Campaign Finance Reform and the First Amendment
| June 25, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Occasionally I write on political and philosophical points that have important but indirect effect on renewables. As a result, folks sometimes want me to link to their blogs in spaces that are off-topic to clean energy.
If you’re interested, here’s something that I wrote this morning on campaign finance reform and the First Amendment. As far as I’m concerned, these people are on the wrong side of this issue, but I wanted to acknowledge the work they’re doing on Free Speech anyway. To me, the idea that campaign contributions from corporatations should be protected under the first amendment is a gross perversion of its intent.
Don’t Look for a Level Playing Field for Renewables Before Radical Campaign Finance Reform
| May 1, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I try to be judicious in my blogging about the politics associated with renewables, mindful that taking sides can alienate certain people. But guest blogger Cameron Atwood brings up something in response to my piece on Campaign Finance Reform that I think is so major and basic that it’s hard to understand how anyone could be offended.
He points out that there are 11,000 corporate and special interest lobbyists for our 535 congress members – a ratio of over 20 lobbyists per member. He further points out that the recent SCOTUS decision (“Citizens United” vs. Federal Elections Commission) granting the status of human beings to corporations, has fully unleashed this terrible power upon the well-being of the common American. As an example, the financial reform bills now inching their way forward face fierce opposition from no fewer that 1500 lobbyists (mostly representing the interested Wall Street, banking and insurance corporations). That’s a ratio of 3 to 1.
History buffs will remember that our forefathers contemplated the possibility of this very mess at the onset of the Union. In particular, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew enough about the potential effects of corporations that they both made very clear statements as to how these entities needed to be regulated with great care so as to avoid the trampling of the democratic process – such as we’re seeing today.
We all want to hope that a leader will spring up with the bravery and determinism to make all this corruption simply evaporate. But how likely is that, given the way our leaders raise funds for their election campaigns?
Say Adios to Campaign Finance Reform
| January 21, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
I have to laugh. Yesterday I happened to mention campaign finance reform, hoping, in my boyish naivete, for a miracle that would somehow enable our leaders to push for legislature that favors people, rather than corporate interests. But what happened today? We received news of the precise opposite.
The US Supreme Court announced this morning that it has found major provisions of campaign finance reform to be unconstitutional, paving the way for corporate and union money to mute the voices of individual citizens like you and me.
Corporations, defined under law as “fictitious persons,” are given enormous power to achieve their only goal: making profit. Human beings on the other hand, i.e., voters, are given no special powers outside of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and have a multitude of interests and duties. We’ve now granted corporations, on which the law has conferred these unnatural profit-making powers, the right to exert extreme pressure on the political process — at the expense of human voters.
ExxonMobil made $85 billion last year. I wonder if they’ll be able to use some of that money to influence legislation in a way that further tilts the playing field in the direction of fossil fuels. Hmmm. Let me think about that one….
Political Process Reform
| December 4, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Writing about the political process, Bob Goldschmidt notes:
The system will never allow campaign finance reform or term limits. However there is a way — individual contributions made to move election results.
It’s interesting that you say this. I personally never contribute to campaigns; I don’t even ask the IRS to send along $2 for me. If I were king of the world, I would reform the election process so dramatically that it would have virtually no resemblance to its current form. My very first action would be to abolish corporate lobbying. 10 minutes later, I would make political advertising illegal, and force the media to cover all candidates equally and neutrally.
Frequent guest blogger Dan Conine says, “The people are somnambulant ‘consumers’ who couldn’t care less who lives or dies as long as there are Cheez Doodles on the shelves at WalMart and gas to go get them.” Sadly, this is 100% true — and I can’t change that. But at least with this reform, these somnambulists would occasionally be bumping into the truth — versus the corporate-controlled garbage that they’re currenly being fed.
Big Energy and Campaign Finance Reform
| November 17, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
The interviews that I am conducting that will eventually form the chapters of my upcoming book on renewables are, by design, on a variety of different topics. Yet I can’t help noticing that powerful common threads are emerging from the words of a range of different types of professionals speaking on topics that, on the surface, have virtually nothing to do with one another.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this lies in the politics behind Big Energy. Here are a few points of consensus:
- A “cozy” relationship exists between government regulators and those they ostensibly regulate.
- This relationship is spawned from the fact that regulators often come from — and later return to — those industries.
- Political campaigns are financed largely from contributions from the corporate giants whose interests the legislators are asked to regulate, presenting huge and obvious conflicts of interest.
All of this may sound like “old news” — so obvious that it hardly bears mentioning. Yet here is a variation on this theme — perhaps more intersting — that actually comes up in our my conversations even more often that this “the fox is guarding the henhouse” discussion above:
The political cycle is two years. Advocating an idea that does not produce demonstrable results in that time period is political suicide. Such support has no upside, and will be used by the supporter’s opponents as evidence of stupidity or corruption. Yet investment in renewable energy — in all its many forms — is long-term (certainly more than two years) by nature. Throwing money quickly and carelessly at the energy problem without thinking it through is guaranteed to produce failure — including gross inefficiencies, and, ironically, more ecological damage.
And guess who wins when renewable energy projects misfire? That’s right, it’s the status quo boys, heartlessly pumping their oil, greedily mining their coal, and recklessly splitting their atoms.
Again, I point to our political machine as the true culprit underlying the horrible environmental effects that the energy industry is wreaking on us. In particular, if we do not see intense grass roots efforts demanding a total reform of campaign finance law, it appears that we are doomed to sit idle while the last few billion barrels of oil are sucked from our earth and its exhaust fumes dumped into our skies.
I’d love to hear readers’ comments here.
