This paper analyzes the American Anti-Corruption Act, a comprehensive reform proposal created by Represent.Us to address the growing influence of money in American politics. The paper examines the Act's nine key provisions, including restrictions on congressional fundraising, lobbying limits, and mandatory transparency requirements for political donations. It contextualizes these reforms within recent Supreme Court decisions—particularly Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC—that expanded corporate political spending. The paper also discusses related reform efforts, including local ballot measures and constitutional amendment proposals, while acknowledging the challenges of building political consensus around specific campaign finance reforms.
In the wake of increasing concerns about the undue influence of money and special interest groups in American politics, the anti-corruption advocacy group Represent.Us created a grassroots campaign in support of a law called the American Anti-Corruption Act. The Act is "a nine-point plan to crack down on lobbyists, strengthen the flimsy law intended to prevent super-PACs from coordinating with campaigns, and put a stop to undisclosed donations funneled through dark-money nonprofits" (Aronsen 2012).
It should be noted that, ironically, "Represent.Us is a project of United Republic, a campaign finance reform group that, like many of the outside spending organizations it takes aim at, is a 501(c)(4)," although it is bipartisan in its composition (Aronsen 2012). Its bipartisan membership includes "former Federal Elections Commission chair (and Stephen Colbert's personal lawyer) Trevor Potter, Lawrence Lessig, disgraced lobbyist-turned-reformer Jack Abramoff, representatives from Occupy Wall Street and the DC Tea Party Patriots, and even Teddy Roosevelt's great-grandson, Theodore IV" (Aronsen 2012). This diverse composition is designed to answer the concerns of critics that there might be singular, self-interested reasons behind the principles of the Act.
The Act is designed not to address the abuses of a single political party but to reform the campaign finance and influence-peddling system, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court undercut many of the reforms inherent in previous campaign finance reform laws. Understanding the Act's nine key provisions and their relationship to recent legal decisions is essential to evaluating its potential impact.
The first tenant of the American Anti-Corruption Act is that it will "prohibit members of Congress from soliciting and receiving contributions from any industry or entity they regulate, including those industries' lobbyists" and "prohibit all fundraising during Congressional working hours" (American Anti-Corruption Act, 2012). One of the principal concerns about Congress' ability to effectively regulate industry and pass legislation is that congressmen and congresswomen are increasingly dependent on the funds of special interest groups to financially support their election campaigns. The Act's intention is, in part, to denature that influence.
"In 2009 alone, lobbyists spent $3.5 billion, or about $6.5 million per each elected member in Congress" (Shaw 2012). The concern is that "money can affect what goes into the bills. Let's say we are talking about healthcare: money guaranteed that single-payer health insurance was not on the table when drafting the Affordable Care Act. There could be nothing more fundamental to that bill than that" (Shaw 2012). The influence of healthcare insurance lobbyists, in other words, likely exercised a powerful influence in shaping the congressional response to demands for reform.
The American Anti-Corruption Act would also demand a clarification of the definition of what constitutes a lobbyist and "limit the amount that lobbyists and their clients can contribute to federal candidates, political parties, and political committees to $500 per year and limit lobbyist fundraising for political campaigns" (American Anti-Corruption Act, 2012).
The American Anti-Corruption Act was intended to reduce the influence of PACs, or Political Action Committees, which dramatically increased in power after the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United. The Citizens United ruling effectively declared corporations to be "persons" whose free speech rights to make campaign contributions express themselves. "Super PACs are political action committees that can accept unlimited donations from individual donors and, as a result of Citizens United, corporations and unions as well" (Laurenz 2014).
The influence of traditional political parties has been declining while the influence of these affiliated partisan groups is on the rise. "Unlike candidates for federal office who must abide by donation limits currently set at $2,600 per individual, these super PACs can, and do, accept checks from wealthy donors in any amount. While super PACs are prohibited by law from coordinating directly with candidates, they can operate a sort of shadow campaign, running ads supporting one candidate or attacking another, with the intent of shaping the outcome of an election" (Laurenz 2014). In fact, many argue that the influence of such PACs is far more dangerous, given that observers are often not aware of the biases and interests behind them.
Since Citizens United, the amount of shadowy money going to such PACs has exploded now that corporations and unions can freely donate without financial restrictions. "During the 2012 cycle, in which non-party outside spending tripled 2008's total and topped $1 billion for the first time, super PACs accounted for more than $600 million of that spending" (Mayersohn 2014). The influence of these organizations has grown disproportionately large, even though such wealthy PACs often only represent a minority of the electorate in terms of their interests: corporations, wealthy individuals, or organizations such as unions dominate their rosters of donors.
Additional concerns arise from so-called dark money groups or "nonprofits that don't disclose their donors publicly but enjoy the same right to make independent expenditures as for-profit corporations" (Mayersohn 2014). These groups have grown significantly in number. "Such groups spent $256 million, or just over a quarter of all non-party outside spending, in the 2012 elections; how much of that money came from corporate treasuries is unknown" (Mayersohn 2014).
The rise of dark money preceded Citizens United but accelerated after the decision. Even before Citizens United, however, the political balance in favor of the influence of PACs was on the rise, thanks to the influence of McCain-Feingold, the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. McCain-Feingold limited the donations of individuals and corporations to the national parties but this merely encouraged more and more donations to special interest organizations, "many of which prefer to focus on highly contentious issues (abortion, gun control, environmentalism)" thus polarizing the political debate (Kelner & La Raja 2014). Furthermore, interest groups, unlike political parties, do not have to disclose the name of donors, which means that there is less of a disincentive to contribute to a radical or polarizing group.
A less famous but equally important recent Supreme Court decision affecting campaign financing was McCutcheon v. FEC, which struck down "the limit on the total amount of money wealthy donors can contribute to candidates and political committees. The court did not disturb the limit on how much an individual may contribute to a specific candidate, currently $2,600 per election. But Roberts said an individual should be able to contribute that amount to as many candidates as he chooses" (Barnes 2014).
The need for transparency of who is donating where is a critical component of the American Anti-Corruption Act. It demands that there is a mandate of "full transparency of all political money. Require any organization that spends $10,000 or more on advertisements to elect or defeat federal candidates to file a disclosure report online with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours. List each of the donors who gave $10,000 or more to the organization to run such ads. This includes all PACs, 501(c) nonprofits, or other groups that engage in electioneering" (American Anti-Corruption Act, 2012).
Transparency is viewed as a critical component of increasing the public's trust in politicians. "It's probably no coincidence that trust in big business and other institutions has sunk to all-time lows while at the same time the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision greatly expanded big companies' ability to fund political campaigns and causes without disclosure" (Newman 2013). Mistrust in corporate America is growing right along with mistrust in Congress, which is seen as advancing the interests of the wealthy and powerful versus the majority of the electorate.
People are growing more rather than less cynical about their ability to influence the direction of the country at the ballot box. Declining political engagement and trust in institutions threaten democratic participation. With this in mind, there is also a demand in the American Anti-Corruption Act to "require federal candidates to disclose the names of individuals who bundle contributions for the member of Congress or candidate, regardless of whether such individuals are registered lobbyists" again in the name of transparency (American Anti-Corruption Act, 2012). "Bundling" refers to the act of combining many small donations into one large donation, as a way of skirting limitations.
"Strengthen FEC enforcement and lobbying registration rules"
"Tallahassee and other cities adopt similar anti-corruption measures"
"Fragmented reform proposals face political and legal obstacles"
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