Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [43]
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Norms
An increasing pressure to raise money correlates not only with changing party policies, but also with radically different congressional norms.
Consider, for example, the case of Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.; 1978–), chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, arguably the most powerful senator during the debate over the details of Obama’s heath care program. Between 2003 and 2008, Senator Baucus raised more than $5 million from the financial, insurance, and health care industries—precisely the industries whose regulation he oversees.30 According to Public Citizen, between 1999 and 2005, “Baucus took in more interest group money than any other senator with the exception of Republican Bill Frist.”31 Baucus is not embarrassed by this fact. Indeed, he should be proud of it. It is a measure of his status, and the power he yields. It is a way to demonstrate that power: they give to him because of it.
Compare Baucus to another powerful committee chairman, Mississippi senator John Stennis (D-Miss.; 1947–1989). As Robert Kaiser describes, in 1982, Stennis was chairman of the Armed Services Committee. That committee oversaw the spending of hundreds of billions of defense dollars. But when Stennis was asked by a colleague to hold a fund-raiser at which defense contractors would be present, Stennis balked. Said Stennis: “Would that be proper? I hold life and death over those companies. I don’t think it would be proper for me to take money from them.”32
The difference between Stennis and Baucus is not idiosyncratic. It reflects a change in norms. Stennis was no choirboy. But his hesitation reflected an understanding that I doubt a majority of Congress today would recognize. There were limits—even just thirty years ago—that seem as antiquated today as the wigs our Framers wore while drafting the Constitution. As Congressman Jim Bacchus (D-Fla.; 1991–1995) said of the practice of raising money from the very people you regulate, it “compromises the integrity of the institution.”33 After that practice became the norm, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.; 1997–2009) commented: “There’s no shame anymore. We’ve blown past the ethical standards, we now play on the edge of the legal standards.”34
Again, it is hard to say with integrity that one thing caused the other. We just don’t have the data to prove it. The most that we can say is that the new norms make fund-raising easier just at the moment when the demand for raising funds rises dramatically. That should concern us.
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Suppliers
The important story of the last thirty years, however, is not just about political parties whistling a new (and more financially attractive) tune. Nor is it about politicians getting more comfortable with leveraging power into campaign cash. The most important bit is the rise of a new army of campaign cash suppliers happy and eager to oblige policymakers with the wonder of their rainmaking techniques.
Some of these suppliers are relatively benign. Campaigns have finance committees, with increasingly professional fund-raisers at the top. These fund-raisers deploy the best techniques to raise money. Those techniques may tilt the message of the campaign slightly. But at least these fund-raisers are the agents of the candidate. They have just one boss, and their interest is in advancing the interests of that boss.
Some of these suppliers, however, are not so benign. For some are not agents of the candidate or the campaign. Instead, a critical and newly significant part