In light of yesterday’s post showing the amounts collected by a long list of special interest groups attempting to impact elections and supporting candidates who would support their goals, here’s an insightful article published a couple of years ago by a former chair of the Federal Election Commission (“The Failed Promise of Unlimited “Independent” Spending in Elections”).

The author, Trevor Potter, traces the changes in election laws following the US Supreme Court’s 1976 decision in the case of Buckley v. Valeo, through to the later Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to unlimited “independent” but campaign-related spending by wealthy individuals and corporations by equating their unrestricted spending to freedom of speech.

The court’s decisions were based on the hypothesis that “independent” expenditures by special interest groups, not coordinated with any candidate, posed little risk of corruption and, therefore, could not be regulated without compromising First Amendment speech.

We all know how that’s turned out.

Potter writes:

…actual independence turns out to be very difficult to ensure in practice. One reason is that coordination between outside groups (such as super PACs or 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporations) and candidates can take a number of forms that go well beyond formal agreements. The Citizens United majority failed to anticipate (or perhaps, as some argue, willfully ignored) the many less formal ways in which outside groups would—and, today, do—work hand-in-hand with campaigns….

Our modern campaign finance system is replete with winks and nods. Indeed, today, it would be highly unusual to see a super PAC aligned with a major candidate’s campaign engage in activity that the campaign viewed as “counterproductive.” Instead, they usually complement or amplify campaigns’ strategies in ways that can be highly valuable—and then major donors who funded those efforts enjoy privileged access to the candidates themselves.

When writing a check to a super PAC earns a donor a closed-door dinner with the candidate that super PAC supports, when a campaign directs donors to the supportive super PAC, when a super PAC is established by close aides of the candidate, or when a super PAC coordinates its media strategy with the campaign, the line between the campaign and the super PAC blurs to the point that contributions to the super PAC almost become indistinguishable in function and effect from contributions made directly to that candidate.

And what’s true at the federal level has trickled down to state and local noncandidate committees that spend lavishly to support their chosen candidates. Well, the trickle has actually been more like a Niagra Falls of special interest money.

In Hawaii’s relatively small political community, who really believes there is no communication or tacit coordination between, for example, the Carpenter’s various electoral front groups and candidates or their campaign committees?

Potter suggests how this works at the federal level, and it isn’t hard to recognize similar dynamics locally.

When writing a check to a super PAC earns a donor a closed-door dinner with the candidate that super PAC supports, when a campaign directs donors to the supportive super PAC, when a super PAC is established by close aides of the candidate, or when a super PAC coordinates its media strategy with the campaign, the line between the campaign and the super PAC blurs to the point that contributions to the super PAC almost become indistinguishable in function and effect from contributions made directly to that candidate. And, for those, the Court has repeatedly acknowledged that heightened corruption concerns justify capping those contributions.

Potter believes the situation could be improved, if not wholly corrected, if the Federal Election Commission set strict and enforceable rules allowing a crackdown on pseudo-independent spending.

Perhaps it’s time to take another look at our election law to see whether there are ways to allow the Campaign Spending Commission to be more effective.

Two more articles worth checking out today:

“Portland Street Response may have saved this woman’s life, soon could save more,” Oregon Live, February 20, 2022.

She credits her safety and progress to Heather Middleton, a community health worker on one of Portland’s new non-police street response teams. Operated out of Portland Fire & Rescue, the program, dubbed Portland Street Response, sends trained mental health workers instead of armed officers to intervene with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis.

Opinion: The Great Resignation is also the Great Retirement of the baby boomers. That’s a problem.” Washington Post, February 18, 2022.

Goldman Sachs estimated last fall that more than half of those who had left the workforce during the covid era’s Great Resignation were over 55. An analysis released by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found workforce exits are higher among baby boomers than pre-covid trends would indicate, with a report last month finding women — many of whom work in public-facing positions and are between the ages of 65 and 74 — among the groups leading the way.