Cash and Carry Democracy

When H. Ross Perot decided to run for president, it was rumored that he was willing to spend from 100 to 300 million dollars to finance his campaign. That amount of money is what a major party spends to elect a president and Perot was putting himself on a par with the major candidates except he didn't need any money. Perot's ability, as one man, to inject himself into major national politics, because of his wealth represents a departure from the little "d" democratic process. Perot keeps calling the people who work for him 'volunteers' as if he had a grass roots organization supporting him. The simple fact is that his volunteers are employees. The fifty state coordinators are on his personal payroll as are others who man the phone banks etc. Granted that people who work in national political campaigns are employees of the candidate or the party where the money that comes to them comes from many sources. The Campaign reform act of 1974 specifies that the candidates must receive so many small contributions before they are eligible for matching funds. This is at least some recognition of the citizens sovereign but not much. No one can fault Perot for wanting to be influential in politics, but to be able do so merely because of wealthy is a severe test of the democratic process.

What Perot is doing is not illegal. There is no law that says persons can not spend their own money promoting a political candidate, even one's self. Perot chose not to go for public financing and saved himself the trouble of having to file reports with the Federal Election Board and at the same time he was able to withhold from public view the internal financial workings of his organization.

While I agree that Mr. Perot had the highest motives, he, none the less, used private funds to alter the course of the election. Now what he did was good. He got the discussion onto real issues and made the other candidates explain their positions since his ground swell would have swamped them if they had not changed their tactics to meet his challenge. Mr. Perot's 30 minute commercials were wonderful. He should teach a class on government on the Sunrise Semester. However, no private citizen should be entrusted with financing the democratic process just because they happen to be wealthy. Private wealth in the democratic process takes it away from ordinary citizens to the point that they are alienated. How can any citizens sovereign feel that the electorial system belongs to them when it seems that a Ross Perot can buy a big chunk of it and yet call what he is doing democracy. Demo- = people, -cracy = rule, democracy = the rule of the people. How can Ross Perot use the word democracy and spend 16 million dollars to have a bunch of paid volunteers tell him that he should spend a lot more money and run for the president. His paid volunteers have already put him on the ballot in the 50 states. I am not saying that every one who votes for Ross Perot is on his payroll. There is a genuine minority of voters who want him to run. From his talk show appearances and from his general background Ross Perot, has attracted a gathering. That's certainly his privilege and no one can deny him his popularity. What can be denied is approbation for the process of buying the democratic process by exerting a inordinate influence through his money.

The two major parties are also guilty of substituting money for will in purchasing position in the democratic process. Ross Perot did not use his money to propagandize, confuse, lie as a means of promoting a candidate or party. He used his money to force the other candidates to face the issues squarely and that is remarkably good. Ross Perot is making it very clear, that we need to restrict the money in campaigns to the people's money. If anyone buys a candidate it should be the people who buy him/her. Never-the-less Perot sent his message in the form he otherwise condemned. He said repeatedly we have to get our government back. The question is who is the we? And get it back from whom? If we is We the People and from whom is the monied interests of the country, was Perot the right mechanism to accomplish the purpose? Was he really the representative of the people or was he his own man? He dismissed his professional political consultants then went on to run a brilliant campaign.

In 1964 the U.S. Supreme Court gave us one person one vote. The Federal Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974 gave us public financing of the presidential election, but allowed unlimited 'soft money' which completely nullifies the effects of public financing. The same act was to address public financing, for the House and the Senate, but instead the Supreme Court exempted Congress from public financing. Political Action Committees resulted. The situation is worse than before the Congress acted because not only is the election of the president undermined by permitting soft money, but the Congress was put up for sale for PAC money, while also making it possible for individual politicians to amass personal fortunes in campaign funds. Ross Perot for all his virtue is an example of this muddled situation. The reason the U.S. Supreme Court disallowed public financing of Congressional offices was they said it interfered with freedom of speech as guaranteed by the Constitution. I believe there is reason to consider political campaigns something other than the exercise of free speech.

If we accept a literal view of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution we must agree that the people are the sovereign. The Declaration says, governments are established among men to obtain or secure the unalienable rights and that they are established with the consent of the governed. Elections and referenda are the manifest expressions of that consent. We the people assign, give, or dispense our consent though the electorial process. The election process is the method the citizens sovereign uses to select those who will govern with just powers (received from the citizens sovereign) and the election is the mechanism of consent. Rather than being a process of free speech, the campaign process is more like a hiring procedure where the citizens sovereign says we have some jobs to fill. The election procedure can be compared to issuing a request for proposals and the filing fee and other procedures are used to establish earnest and sincere interest. The political campaigning is an extended interview where the candidates tell the citizens sovereign what they are going to do if they get the job. If they say the right things in the interview they get the job, if they say the wrong things or make a gaff they don't get the job.

An election is the letting of a contract for services to be delivered during a specific time period. The citizens sovereign designate the winner of the contract through the voting process. The successful candidates are sworn to uphold the Constitution and do a good job and continuation in the job requires periodic resubmission to the contract procedure with subsequent consents given to successful candidates by the citizens sovereign. An election is not necessarily a process amenable to first amendment guarantees, any more than any job seeking procedure would come under first amendment protection, especially from third parties. Free speech is an ancillary right to all human transactions and in that manner is applicable to the election process as it is to baseball. However, neither the management of elections nor baseball leagues have a requirement for free speech as a central tenant of management.

The interposition of third parties in this process in the form of political parties' spokespersons, wealthy donors, PACS, et al modify the aspect of the process but do not alter the fundamental relationship between the candidate and the citizens sovereign. Using outside "soft" money to alter the selection process in an election moves in the same direction of immorality as interposing special interests in a contract award procedure. Elections cost a lot of money. The citizens sovereign can not give informed consent without being informed. Should people with wealth have an inordinate influence in this matter just because they are wealthy (and the recipients of the favors of the elected)? The role of the citizens sovereign is reduced to the passive role of voting, for somebody some one else tells them to vote for. Voter apathy on the part of the citizens sovereign is the result.

It's hard to believe but an actual desired outcome for present process of degradation of the electorial process is to discourage people from voting. The arguments, against liberalizing the voting process in the Congress when the motor-voter registration bill was considered, were tragic. The most contrived reasons were advanced to keep the citizens sovereign from voting.

Registration to vote should occur at birth and the voter registration number should be the Social Security number. The U.S. Census Bureau should prepare the voter rolls as part of its census obligations and should make them available to the States for the purposes of elections. The people who are getting Social Security numbers at birth are not just potential voters, they are the citizens sovereign and its important to know who they are so that their unalienable rights also can be delivered to them starting at birth.

Ross Perot affected the outcome of the election of 1992. To be fair, it must be said he affected the election for the good by advancing the basic civics that are part and parcel of the election process. The lessons Ross Perot taught us is that if we don't have the basic relations between the candidates and the citizens sovereign understood and if we don't have public financing of elections which would make it possible for basic civics to have an effect on our elections we lose our government to "them," the people like Mr. Perot who have the money. We need to empower the ordinary citizens sovereign and the way to do it is to place the elections system in their hands. Public financing of selections (job selection of people who govern, on behalf of the citizens sovereign) would go a long way to achieve that goal. It's not a matter of free speech. It's a matter of the citizens sovereign (the guys with the job to fill) giving informed consent on the relative merits of proposals submitted by persons wishing to govern (fill the job). It's more important that we hear from the candidates themselves than their paid flacks and hired propagandists. We have one person one vote we now need one dollar one vote. Let the citizens sovereign i.e. Us the People decide, not just the folks with the money. Our thanks to Ross Perot just the same.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1993
Institute for domestic Tranquility