Political Corruption
A Quick Dive into Money and Politics
Let's start off with perhaps the most important point to make on this topic: research shows that, based on the bills and policies that are put into place, Congress doesn't care what ordinary Americans want. This is reinforced by numerous studies demonstrating that policy changes align almost exclusively with the opinions of the rich, rather than the wants and needs of regular citizens.
This is because the vast majority of Congress members seem to care more about reelection than actually serving their constituents. Senators and Representatives alike spend 30% to 70% of their time in Congress fundraising. That can be up to 30 hours a week. That's time that could have been spent actually doing their jobs representing us. A recent study using machine learning shows that which issues Congress member pays attention to is substantially affected by whether it's an issue one of their major donors cares about. As if that wasn't a bad enough look, another recent study demonstrated that Congress members were substantially more likely to give their own personal attention to individuals contacting their office who identified themselves as one of their major donors. Conversely, subjects identifying themselves as ordinary constituents had next to no chance whatsoever to meet with either the Congress member in question or any of their ranking staff. The link is clear: the rich are effectively paying for private access to our lawmakers, leaving ordinary Americans ignored.
But, the pay-to-play scheme gets even worse. In both Republican and Democrat party organizations, power is concentrated within party leaders, who are overwhelmingly focused on raising money over anything else. These party leaders decide who can and cannot become a candidate, limiting constituents' options. Only members of their local / regional political clubs who are in good standing have any real shot at candidacy. Overwhelmingly, establishment political organizations also prioritize candidates who are able to raise funds for the party and are willing to 'play ball' in this game of filling their political party's coffers. This behavior, unfortunately, is deeply engrained within politics at all levels. And because of this incredible importance placed on having regular, massive amounts of money coming into the party, candidates and incumbents who either refuse to go along with this or run on policies that go against the desires of ultra-wealthy donors either get primaried out or are flat-out ejected from the party. This happens even if the incumbent in quesiton does what their constituents want. We've seen this before multiple times in the past decade.
To add to this already unforgivable state of affairs, campaign funds raised are routinely spent on excessive and lavish dinners, hotel stays, private jet flights, and even entertainment venues. As rewards for writing laws that specifically benefit their wealthy donors, many Congress members transition into lucrative positions on corporate boards, or as highly paid advisors at lobbying firms. It's also not at all unusual for these former Congress members to get paid insane sums of money for speeches and 'consulting' work after leaving office, courtesy of the companies and individuals that had bankrolled their campaigns earlier. Though this kind of behavior is supposed to be illegal for the first year after leaving office, that hasn't stoped dozens of former Congress members from ignoring those restrictions with the smallest amounts of effort by becoming 'shadow lobbyists'.
This rampant and extensively documented corruption over the decades requires two types of solutions: acts centered around campaign finance, and acts centered around updating laws on bribery and corruption.
Require Full Transparency in Campaign Expenditures
Put bluntly, the campaign reporting required by the FEC is bare bones. Because of this, the most egregious examples of extravagant campaign spending are incredibly difficult to unearth. Expenses like golf club memberships and tickets to opera theatre shows evade the public eye when they should be rightly reported and published for the shameless instances of improper gifting that they are. No one running for public office has any reasonable excuse for trying to hide where their campaign money is coming from or what they're spending it on.
Impose Stricter Definitions on Acceptable Campaign Expenditures
Candidates deserve to have somewhere to eat and sleep on the campaign trail, but modern campaigns have lost all sense of what's reasonable. The occasional $30 sit-down restaurant meal isn't excessive. Frequent $100+ dinners at the priciest establishments around is. The point of being allowed to spend campaign money on food, lodging, and transportation is to facilitate face-to-face connection between candidates and constituents, not turn a political bid into an all-expense-paid vacation. In a landscape where large businesses wield massive influence via campaign finance, having tightened expenditure definitions is just common sense.
Strengthen FEC to Enforce Current Rules
Today, the FEC is grievously underfunded and understaffed for its role in examining election concerns and responding to actual violations. What few regulations there are often aren't even enforced, due to the extreme shortages. As with any oversight group, they need enough resources to be able to do their jobs. Because the FEC is so comparatively small, legislation bolstering their resources would require next to nothing of the taxpayers. In turn, it could save voters millions of dollars as candidates engaging in improper behavior are caught, fined, and even forced to return contributions for their misconduct.
Permanently Ban Former Legislators From Lobbying
Small handfuls of Congress members have, from time to time, recognized the blatant conflict of interest in former lawmakers getting large salaries for helping special interests get their own laws introduced and passed. This would be a powerful step toward removing a substantial source of corruption from our lawmaking process. I would support not only legislation that prevents them from taking such jobs, but furthermore propose legislation that heavily criminalizes the act of giving rich individuals and businesses special access to Congress. Money should not buy laws in any capacity, and this needs to be reflected in our criminal code.
Expand Criminal Definitions of Bribery for Lawmakers
The existing legal definitions focus only on the clumsiest and most immediate forms of quid-pro-quo and give very little recourse for the more insidious form we see today: delayed, long-term gratification. Because Congress members wield such incredible power, it stands to reason that they should be held to a much higher standard than the ordinary citizen. One of the best ways to shut this down is to deny former Congress members access to the salaried positions their donors offer them after retiring from office. In that spirit, I'll introduce and support legislation that imposes a minimum 5 year prohibition on receiving compensation from any of their donors for any reason (including employment), punishable by harsher fines and sentencing than normal.