• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Campaign Finance>
  3. 28th amendment>

National upheaval is the time for doubling down on the campaign finance cure

Dave Palmer
June 17, 2020
money in politics
Dave Palmer
Palmer is a public interest attorney who ran Fair Elections for New York, a campaign that won passage of the state's new public campaign financing program in April.

The tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic, and the most recent high-profile killings of Black people by police, have laid bare America's biggest policy shortcomings and inequities. A growing number of voices are correctly arguing that our shared dream of returning to normal must be about a new normal — one providing everyone, not just the few who are wealthy and white, with real economic and health security.

However obvious the wake-up calls of Covid-19 and renewed demands for racial equity may seem, they will not change the political playbook of wealthy interests — and policy change won't come easy. Remember when the bailed-out banks that caused the 2008 economic crash turned around and spent record sums to weaken the regulations needed to prevent another collapse? That's the world we live in.

To build the new normal, we must eliminate a key structural barrier to achieving the policies we need: the undue influence of big money in our politics. These days, it seems almost everyone understands this. We just need to double down on addressing it, as called for most recently by the bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship.

Since the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the Supreme Court has equated money with speech under the First Amendment. The problem with this interpretation is that it favors the political speech of those who give big political donations, silencing the rest of us.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision a decade ago, among others, only made matters worse. The court now effectively prohibits the best solutions to combating big money's power, including election spending limits.

A federal public campaign financing program would help a lot, and Congress should act when it can. But it's also an incomplete solution in a world where unlimited money can be used to influence the electoral process. While it's much better than nothing, that cannot be America's standard for the functioning of our democracy.

What we ultimately need, if we hope to shift political power to everyday people to the degree necessary, is a 28th Amendment to the Constitution — one enabling more robust state and federal regulation of the financing of political campaigns.

As a nation we value the concept of "one person, one vote," yet the Supreme Court has told us that political equality is somehow off limits when it comes to how elections are funded. History suggests we shouldn't wait for the court to change its mind. In the 45 years after its decision denying women the right to vote, and before ratification of the 19th Amendment 100 years ago guaranteeing women that same right, 25 justices were replaced.

A change in the Constitution, like democracy itself, won't by itself bring us to a promised land of political and racial equality. But it would unquestionably open up to voters and lawmakers a much broader range of tools for eliminating today's loopholes, and the other vulnerabilities in the system that wealthy interests will surely discover and exploit tomorrow.

From there, we could look forward to more diversity in our legislatures, more political power for people with low and middle incomes — and, in turn, more laws that address racial inequity. This is why the Movement for Black Lives calls for a campaign finance constitutional amendment and public election financing in its policy platform.

Promoting a 28th Amendment should have been at the top of President Trump's agenda. The blurry line between criminal bribery and political giving is a big part of creating the swamp that both parties claim they hope to drain.

As a senator from Delaware back in 1997, Joe Biden called the Supreme Court's Buckley ruling "supremely wrong" and declared that "the single most important thing that has to be done from a purely practical sense is to amend the Constitution." Such an amendment is now at the top of his presidential campaign's political reform platform. Should he win, Biden must declare its realization a national imperative.

Ultimately, though, hope rests with us. As this moment makes clear, people must organize for the change we need. There's been substantial progress in Congress and in the states but we're still short of the necessary two-thirds support from Congress — as well as the three-fourths of state legislatures, who would be called on to ratify the new constitutional language if Congress acts.

The suffragists and abolitionists of yesteryear didn't give up when they didn't have the votes; they ramped up. Movements change political dynamics.

The effort to win a constitutional amendment is a rare opportunity to unite Americans no matter our home states, birthplaces, skin color, political party or faith. A majority of Americans — Democrats, Republicans and independents alike — support an amendment. They just need to be activated.

Money's hold over policymaking remains at the root of many of our most pressing problems, and the Supreme Court has locked the toolbox of most-effective solutions. Like combatting racism, fighting for better wages and working conditions, and addressing the climate crisis, we simply must have this fight. And winning a campaign finance amendment would help deliver wins on those other issues.

The policy failures brought to light by the pandemic, and by black and brown voices in the streets, are the call to get this amendment over the finish line.

From Your Site Articles
  • Five reasons unlimited spending undermines American democracy ... ›
  • The American corruption crisis and one plan to solve it - The Fulcrum ›
  • Amendment to nullify Citizens United finally gets air time in the House ›
  • Three reasons Republicans should support the 28th Amendment ... ›
  • Dan Snyder could make democracy reform part of the new name - The Fulcrum ›
  • Women make fewer political donations, risk being ignored - The Fulcrum ›
  • Constitutional amendement needed to ensure freedom, equality - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • We the People Amendment ›
  • Pass the 28th Amendment to Ensure Corporations Are Not People ... ›
  • The 28th Amendment - American Promise ›
  • The 'surprisingly sensible' 28th Constitutional Amendment ›
28th amendment

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow
Contributors

Why does a man wearing earrings drive Christians crazy?

Paul Swearengin

DeSantis' sitcom world

Lawrence Goldstone

Hypocrisy of pro-lifers being anti-LGBTQIA

Steve Corbin

A dangerous loss of trust

William Natbony

Shifting the narrative on homelessness in America

David L. Nevins

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane
latest News

Ask Joe: Two sides of a story

Joe Weston
02 June

Podcast: Saving democracy from & with AI

Our Staff
01 June

Default? Financial crisis? Political theater?

David Butler
01 June

Three practical presidential pledges to promote national prosperity

James-Christian B. Blockwood
31 May

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Justin Roebuck

Mia Minkin
31 May

Podcast: Why Is Congressional Oversight Important, and How Can It Be Done Well? (with Elise Bean)

Kevin R. Kosar
Elise J. Bean
30 May
Videos

Video: Why music? Why now?

David L. Nevins

Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirst Friday YOUnify & CPL

Our Staff

Video: What is the toll of racial violence on Black lives?

Our Staff

Video: What's next for migrants seeking asylum after Title 42

Our Staff

Video: An inside look at the campaign to repeal Pennsylvania’s closed primaries

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Saving democracy from & with AI

Our Staff
01 June

Podcast: AI revolution: Disaster or great leap forward?

Our Staff
25 May

Podcast: Can we fix America's financial crises?

Our Staff
23 May

Podcast: Gen Z's fight for democracy

Our Staff
22 May
Recommended
Why does a man wearing earrings drive Christians crazy?

Why does a man wearing earrings drive Christians crazy?

Diversity Inclusion and Belonging
DeSantis' sitcom world

DeSantis' sitcom world

Opinion
Ask Joe: Two sides of a story

Ask Joe: Two sides of a story

Pop Culture
Video: Why music? Why now?

Video: Why music? Why now?

Big Picture
Podcast: Saving democracy from & with AI

Podcast: Saving democracy from & with AI

Technology
Default? Financial crisis? Political theater?

Default? Financial crisis? Political theater?

Budgeting