Campaign Finance Reform
Floor Speech
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Ms. WARREN. Madam President, we have a problem--money. Six years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court made the problem worse, a lot worse. Thanks to the Supreme Court, our system of elections is riddled with corruption. Money floods our political system--money that lets a handful of billionaires shape who gets into Congress and may decide who sits in the White House.
As Congress has become more beholden to billionaires and less worried about the American people, look at what has happened in Washington. Armies of lawyers and lobbyists flood the hallways of Congress and regulatory agencies, urging just a little tilt for every law and every rule--a sentence here, an exception there, and always tilted in favor of the rich and powerful. Corporate executives and government officials spin through the revolving door, making sure the interests of powerful corporations are always carefully protected. Powerful Wall Street businesses pay barely disguised bribes, offering millions of dollars to trusted employees to go to Washington for a few years to make policies that will benefit exactly those same Wall Street businesses. Corporations and trade groups fund study after study that just so happen to support the special rule or the exception that the industry is looking for.
Washington works great for a handful of wealthy individuals and powerful corporations that manipulate the system to benefit themselves. It works great for the lobbyists and the lawyers who slither around Washington day in and day out, handsomely paid to troll for special deals for those who pay them. But for everyone else, Washington is not working so well, and if we don't change that, this rigged political game will break our country.
Change is needed in many areas, but we can start with how we fund elections. In 2012, about 3.7 million Americans gave modest donations-- under $200--to President Obama and Mitt Romney. Those donations added up to $313 million. In the same election, 32 people gave monster donations to super PACs. Thirty-two people spent slightly more on the 2012 elections than the 3.7 million people who sent modest dollar donations to their preferred Presidential candidates. When 32 people can outspend 3.7 million citizens, it is pretty obvious that democracy is in real danger.
We are headed into another Presidential election, and I speak out today because I am genuinely alarmed for our democracy. I am genuinely alarmed because 6 years ago today the U.S. Supreme Court said that the privileged few are entitled under the Constitution to spend billions of dollars to swing elections and buy off legislators. Six years ago today the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a century of established law and in doing so unleashed a flood of secret corporate money into our political system.
The Supreme Court created a big problem, but that does not mean that anyone with any integrity must just roll over and play dead. No, it is time to fight back. Sure, the Supreme Court has a lot of power, and, yes, they have used it to do a huge amount of damage. But even under the Supreme Court ruling there is room to fight back against the complete capture of our government by the rich and powerful.
Let's start right here with three examples of what this Congress could do right now today--what this Congress could do if we had the political courage to stand up to the superwealthy few and a handful of corporations.
No. 1, pass Senator Durbin's Fair Elections Now Act. This legislation would create public funding for congressional elections. Imagine the contributions of small donors so working families would have a louder voice and could begin to compete with the rich and powerful. This is a bipartisan solution--well, at least bipartisan outside Washington. According to a recent poll, Democrats and Republicans both agreed strongly with the idea of citizen-funded elections; 72 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Republicans said yes.
No. 2, pass the DISCLOSE Act, Senator Whitehouse's bill to force super PACs out of the shadows and make them tell where the money comes from. According to that same poll, 91 percent of Democrats and 91 percent of Republicans agree that super PACs and other special interests should have to disclose the source of their funding.
No. 3, pass the Shareholder Protection Act, Senator Menendez's bill to force companies to tell their shareholders how much money they are giving to politicians and which politicians they are giving it to. This is the shareholders' money, and they have a right to know how it is spent. If they don't like how the money is being spent, they can put somebody else in charge.
Those are three things Congress could do right now, but there is even more.
No. 4, the President could finalize an Executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political spending. Why should companies that do business with the government be allowed to give money in secret to benefit elected officials? Seventy-eight percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Republicans want to see this done.
No. 5, the SEC has the authority right now to begin to put together rules that would require opinion corporations to disclose the money they spent in elections. Despite Republican efforts to try to block this rule through a rider in the recent government funding bill, legal experts agree that the agency still has all the authority it needs to prepare a disclosure rule.
The public demands action. The SEC has received more than a million comments from the people across this country urging the agency to issue this rule--88 percent of Democrats and 88 percent of Republicans. That is right, 88 percent of both sides support public disclosure of political spending.
Three former SEC Commissioners, one Republican, two Democrats, wrote a public letter to Chair Mary Jo White urging her to adopt this rule. It is time for the agency to stop making excuses and start doing its job.
No. 6, the FEC has the authority right now to require ads run by super PACs include disclosure of the main people or corporations that paid for them. If they want to run the country, then the billionaires shouldn't be allowed to hide in the shadows. Make them step out in the open where the American people can see who is calling the shots.
There is one more step we can take, a full-blown constitutional amendment, such as the one pushed forward by my colleague Senator Udall to restore authority to Congress and to the States.
I have to say, I am reluctant to take on a constitutional amendment, but we need to defend our great democracy against those who would see it perverted into one more rigged game where the rich and the powerful always win, and that means taking every step possible, including amending the Constitution.
These are six ideas that would help bring an end to a corrupt political system; six ideas that Congress, the administration, the SEC, and the FCC could put together right now.
A seventh idea is a constitutional amendment that we could begin working on today. This Congress doesn't lack for workable ideas for how to root out the influence of money in politics. This Congress just lacks a spine to do it.
Six years ago the U.S. Supreme Court turned loose a flood of hidden money that is about to drown our democracy. We can blame the Supreme Court--heck, we should blame the Supreme Court, but that is no excuse for doing nothing.
A new Presidential election is upon us. The first votes will be cast in Iowa in just 11 days. Anyone who shrugs and claims that change is just too hard has crawled into bed with the billionaires who want to run this country like some private club. All of us were sent here to do our best to make government work--to make it work not just for those at the top but to make government work for all people, and it is time we start acting like it.
Madam President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
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