Transparency

The folks at the Sunlight Foundation aren't putting virtual logos of contributors on speakers at the health care summit, but they have the right idea.  As each person speaks, a list of their top contributors appears beside the window.  Great idea!

Another Step Along the Road to America, Inc.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that is one more step toward a United States in which corporations hold citizenship instead of individuals.  The ruling frees corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns.  It is a natural extension of Buckley v. Valeo, which holds that money is equivalent to political speech and therefore political contributions cannot be limited.  We have gone from one person, one vote, to one person's dollar, one vote, and finally to one corporation's dollar, one vote.

This shift in power from the individual to the corporation might not necessarily be a bad thing, if the responsibilities of citizenship were being required of corporations, along with the rights of citizenship being conferred upon them.  Historically, however, corporations have tried to steer government away from burdening them with responsibility of any kind.  Exemptions, deregulation, subsidies, and immunity are the spoils that corporations gain from their contributions.  The nuclear power industry is exempt from punitive damages in liability cases.  Health insurance companies are exempt from antitrust action.  And on and on.

As I mentioned in another blog entry, it looks like the only way to deal with corporate donations is to pass a law that requires elected officials to wear the logos of their donors.  If the Supreme Court is not going to allow limits on corporate contributions, then the only recourse is to make sure that the public is aware of which politicians are in the pockets of which corporate entities.  And besides, it would just plain be fun to see an elected body full of colorful, NASCAR-like symbols.

The NASCARization of Politics

I have a simple two-part solution for campaign finance reform here in the United States. First, remove all limits on campaign spending. Second, require that all elected officials, and all candidates for elected office, wear the logos or some other insignia that identifies each major organizational donor to their campaign.

Eliminating limits on campaign finances conforms with Buckley v. Valeo, the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that holds that campaign donations are a form of speech and thus cannot be limited or regulated. Requiring office holders and seekers to wear logos makes good use of the growing cultural trend to identify with brand names and symbols. The resulting openness and transparency should make for better politics, or at least, great entertainment. Politics, sports, entertainment and business continue to merge into one gigantic amorphous mass. My idea is just one more stage in this grand fusion.

This win-win-win idea simply recognizes reality. Since 1976, Buckley v. Valeo has stymied efforts to reign in campaign finances. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, life in the U.S. has become more commercialized over the ensuing decades. Corporate logos appear everywhere now. People walk down the street wearing T-shirts and jackets proudly proclaiming their allegiance to Nike, Ford, Budweiser, and on and on. Stadiums and arenas are no longer named after heroic sports figures, but instead wear the names of Qualcomm, Target, Conseco, et al. Even colleges and universities are beginning to succumb to the trend. The University of Houston has an Enron Teaching Award. My own employer, The University of Iowa, recently considered naming their College of Public Health after the Wellmark Foundation, which is affiliated with Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa.

My admittedly brilliant idea will solve all our campaign finance problems, and I'm sure it will prove to be extremely popular. Politicians will love it, because it will do away with all those pesky campaign finance laws they have to follow. They'll finally be able to receive unlimited amounts of cash without the risk of penalty (not that there was ever much risk of penalty to begin with). The general population will love it because we Americans love to identify with large, extremely wealthy organizations. We proudly wear logos on our clothes, plaster them on our cars, hoist them above our sports arenas and even our institutions of higher learning. Organizations will love it because not only will they continue to be able to use political donations to exert influence--they'll also be able to leverage their donations to market themselves.

All those pickup decals showing Calvin peeing on a Ford-Chevy-Dodge logo (pick one) will now have greater political significance. As the idea takes hold and our elected officicals begin to look more and more like NASCAR drivers, I look forward to the day when I can turn to C-SPAN and watch a senator emblazoned with the Microsoft logo respond to a senator sporting an Apple emblem. I can only hope that some day, in the halls of Congress, we will finally hear the political debate that epitomizes our current system: "Less filling!" "Tastes great!"