Vol. 81/No. 19      May 15, 2017

 

The fraud of capitalist ‘electoral reform’ laws

 
On April 20 the Federal Election Commission denied an extension for the exemption the Socialist Workers Party has had for over 35 years from filing the names of contributors to its election campaigns. The following excerpts from an April 5, 1974, article from the Militant by Larry Seigle discuss the decision of the U.S. capitalist rulers to promote “campaign reforms” — like disclosure — in an effort to regain weakening support for bourgeois politics at the time.

Going into the 1970s, demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, for Black rights, for women’s right to choose abortion and other social protests and union battles were spurring growing distrust in capitalist rule and its two parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

The widespread outrage at what became known as the Watergate burglary, organized by the reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon led to his resignation in 1974.

The Socialist Workers Party seized the opportunity in 1973 to launch a far-reaching political campaign, including legal action, against government spying and disruption against the SWP and Young Socialist Alliance by the FBI and other government agencies.

The rulers sought to deflect popular attention from the revelations of the workings of the capitalist system by adopting a series of “campaign reforms.” One of their first moves was the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act, which ordered political campaign committees to report the names of their contributors. This was ballyhooed as a tool to establish “transparency” in elections.

This effort was promoted by Common Cause, a liberal outfit that promoted disclosure. They led a national effort to prevent the SWP from winning exemption precisely when the party’s campaign was forcing out increasing evidence of government spying and harassment of the party.

Future issues of the Militant will cover how the SWP won this fight and the stakes for the working class.

BY LARRY SEIGLE
A grand fraud is being cooked up in Congress. The master chefs are the leaders of both capitalist parties, and they are advertising the recipe as “The Answer to Watergate.”

The dish? Reform of campaign financing, including tougher reporting laws, new restrictions on raising and spending funds, and some form of public financing.

The promoters are ecstatic. “At a single stroke,” promises senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), “we can drive the money-lenders out of the temple of politics. We can end the corrosive and corrupting influence of private money in public life.”

Unfortunately there is no Truth-in-Packaging-Law that applies to the fast-sell doubletalk of politicians promoting new legislation. If there were, the proposals being talked about so glibly by Kennedy and his colleagues would be required to bear a notice: “‘Reform’ value — nil. And watch out! This bill is hazardous to your political rights….”

Stiffer reporting requirements

One who still believes that the politicians are, under public pressure, trying to clean up politics might say at this point, “Okay, the public financing proposal is unfair. But surely some progress will come from forcing public disclosure of campaign contributions, won’t it?”

No it won’t. Moreover, the disclosure provisions will hurt smaller parties even more than the unfair public financing.

Let’s take one example. Under this law, the Socialist Workers Party has had to report to the government the name, address and workplace of all contributors of more than $100 to SWP election campaigns. At the same time, the government claims that because the SWP is “subversive,” anyone who is “affiliated” to the SWP is fair target for FBI surveillance and harassment. And “subversives” can be fired from government employment and many private companies with government contracts or their own version of the blacklist.

Thus, anyone who contributes has got to be ready to accept this harassment.

“But,” our friend might argue, “the law applies equally to everyone.” That’s the catch. There is no “equality.” Contributing to the democrats and the republicans is not going to lose anyone a job, or get a file opened by any of the multitude of snooping agencies in Washington. But donating money to the SWP, or the Communist Party, or the People’s Party or the Raza Unida Party may very well.

“Cleaning up politics”

And as for “cleaning up” politics through forcing disclosure, this is the biggest fraud of all. As experience has shown, the only result of tightening controls on campaign financing is to drive the corruption further underground, not to end it.

Illicit financial deals are diverted to more indirect routes. Money is “laundered” through Mexican banks or foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations. If limits are put on contributions, big donors simply break them down and have 10, 50 or 100 “friends” make the gifts.

Illegal? Of course. But equally uncontrollable. And after all, the administrators of the law are the very same politicians and parties who are supposedly being controlled.

More important. No amount of “campaign reform” is going to change the fact that the capitalist parties serve the interests of the capitalist class and do its bidding, The class loyalties of the Democratic and Republican politicians can’t be “reformed.”

An additional unfair burden falling on the smaller parties is the monumental job of bookkeeping and paperwork that compliance with the new law requires. This is no problem for the capitalist parties, who have teams of lawyers and accountants at their disposal. But complying with the law is a huge task for smaller parties.

However, all the existing inequalities pale by comparison to what may happen in the future. The likelihood is that the Democrats and Republicans will soon be getting public financing, bringing an end to their private fundraising. This means that the reporting provisions may soon apply only to opponents of the two capitalist parties.

Are these considerations merely accidental side effects that the “reformers” in congress didn’t foresee? I don’t think so. I think the capitalist parties have been taking advantage of the widespread revulsion at the corruption revealed by Watergate to sneak through some additional obstacles to independent political action.

While posing as crusading opponents of corruption to strengthen their public image, these shysters are reinforcing the most corrupt aspect of U.S. politics — the virtual stranglehold maintained by the two capitalist parties.

The fake reform bills now on the books, and the new ones likely to be passed, should be exposed and opposed by all those who believe in freedom of political expression and choice, and especially by those who support parties directly hurt by the new legislation.  
 
 
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