Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [168]
132. Lowenstein, “On Campaign Finance Reform,” 323. (Addressing skepticism about the proven effects of money on results, Lowenstein writes: “The question of campaign finance is a question of conflict of interest… in the course of a relationship of trust.”)
133. “The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor,” The Pew Research Center (April 18, 2010), 2, available at link #132.
134. Birnbaum, The Money Men, 10.
135. National Election Studies: The ANES Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior, University of Michigan Center for Political Studies, available at link #133.
136. New Judicial Watch/Zogby Poll: “81.7% of Americans Say Political Corruption Played a ‘Major Role’ in Financial Crisis,” Judicial Watch (Oct. 21, 2008), available at link #134.
137. Jeanne Cummings, “SCOTUS Ruling Fuels Voters’ Ire,” Politico (Feb. 9, 2010), available at link #135. See also University of Texas, “Money and Politics Project U.S. National Survey” (2009), available at link #136 (finding that 79 percent of respondents believe that the source of a candidate’s campaign contributions has a high degree of influence on how a candidate votes on legislation).
138. Huffington, Third World America, 129.
139. As Mark Warren has written, “If low trust instead indicates disaffection from the institutions that manage distrust, then the kind of distrust necessary for a democracy to work—engaged monitoring of political officials—is replaced by disengagement, undermining the transformative capacities of democratic institutions.” Mark E. Warren, “Democracy and Deceit: Regulating Appearances of Corruption,” American Journal of Political Science 50 (2006): 160, 165.
140. Birnbaum, The Money Men, 10.
141. Steven J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America (1993). I am particularly grateful to Bryson Morgan for helping me frame this distinction.
142. See R. Michael Alvarez, Thad E. Hall, and Morgan Llewellyn, “On American Voter Confidence,” University of Arkansas–Little Rock Law Review 29 (2007): 705; Robert F. Bauer, “Going Nowhere, Slowly: The Long Struggle Over Campaign Finance Reform and Some Attempts at Explanation and Alternatives,” Catholic University Law Review 51 (2002): 741, 763 (“Studies conclusively show that nonvoting does not stem from a rejection of, or hypothesized alienation from, the political process, but from a lack of interest in it”); David M. Primo and Jeffrey Milyo, “Campaign Finance Laws and Political Efficacy: Evidence from the States,” Election Law Journal 5 (2006): 1 (relationship between campaign finance laws and perception of democratic rule), available at link #137; John Samples, “Three Myths about Voter Turnout in the United States,” Cato Institute (Sept. 14, 2004) (“The asserted line of causality from campaign finance to distrust of government does not exist. Given that, campaign finance cannot cause declines in voter turnout”), available at link #138.
143. Rosenstone and Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America, 144. This conclusion is confirmed by Kevin Chen, Political Alienation and Voting Turnout in the United States: 1960–1988 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), 214, 217.
144. Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter (New York: Knopf, 2002), 183.
145. Rock the Vote, Wikipedia, available at link #139.
146. August 2010 Rock the Vote survey, question #15.
147. “What Do Elected Officials Think About the Role of Money in Politics?” Democracy Matters, available at link #140 (last visited June 21, 2011).
148. Hetherington, Why Trust Matters, 149.
149. Thompson, Ethics in Congress, 125–26.
Chapter 11. How So Damn Much Money Defeats the Left
1. Speech of Barack Obama, Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 8, 2008.
2. Obama: “ ‘No Welfare for Wall Street’: Nominee Is Inclined