The DNC Just Blew Another Chance to Write Dark Money Out of Its Platform
Worse than green money is dark money, the kind that comes from undisclosed donors primarily with enormous sums reserved for buying political influence. The DNC had another chance to eschew it.
A convenient talking point, usually popular with those aligned with the right, or those wishing to conceal their political ignorance, is “Both sides do it.”
There are demonstrable differences, however, between the Democratic and republican parties.
For starters, the Democratic party is the party of working people.
It is the party of unions, inclusivity, and the middle class.
Democrats brought us…
Public education
The labor movement
The minimum wage
Social Security
Medicare
Unemployment insurance
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP)
Federal housing assistance
Rural electrification and telephony
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
The Peace Corps
The Civil Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act
Medicaid
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
The Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “Obamacare”)
Environmental regulations
The Violence Against Women Act
…and the gamut of accomplishments over the past two years the corporate media is doing its best to ignore.
But there is one area on which both major political parties converge.
It is the cancer on our democracy in the form of money in our political system.
Unlike most democracies, the United States does not publicly fund elections.
Elections in this country require a lot of capital, typically resulting from candidates coming to prospective donors, hats in hand.
This is why we see so few political candidates who aren’t already, if not wealthy, at least financially well off.
Running for office is extremely expensive.
Worse than green money, though, is dark money, the kind that comes from undisclosed donors primarily with enormous sums reserved for buying political influence.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) Resolutions Committee had a chance recently to ban it, but instead, for the second time, doubled down on it.
On Friday, Nevada Democratic Party Chair Judith Whitmer explained:
Time and time again, we’ve watched ‘dark money’ used to silence the voices our party most needs to hear. Our party and our country need strong Democratic candidates willing to speak truth to power, but when their messages can be drowned out in a flood of untraceable expenditures, many candidates are questioning why they should even run. Restoring faith in our democracy has never been more urgent, and that all-important work should start in our own primary elections.
Whitmer, along with fellow DNC member, James Zogby, sponsored the prohibition.
Had the Resolutions Committee not stayed mum, it likely would have gone to a full vote this weekend since dozens of DNC members support it.
Even President Joe Biden wants to see a future where this albatross has been lifted from the DNC’s neck.
Yet, despite asserting in the party platform in 2020 that “we will bring an end to ‘dark money’ by requiring full disclosure of contributors to any group that advocates for or against candidates,” the DNC once again missed an opportunity to distinguish itself from the characteristic most odious to progressive politicians and voters alike.
On January 21, 2010, the nation’s highest court handed down its ruling on the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) decision equating political spending with free speech covered under the Constitution‘s first amendment.
Under this ruling, the federal government is prohibited from interfering with corporations, nonprofit organizations, and unions from spending unlimited sums to support or oppose individual political candidates.
As long as they are not presenting funds to campaigns directly, corporations are free to dump as much as they want into political advertising and “super PACs” (political action committees) not required to disclose their donors’ identities.
It’s what former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee–now Utah Senator–Mitt Romney referred to in 2011 when he proclaimed “Corporations are people!”
This scourge is one of the primary reasons more progressive candidates do not get elected despite their being more popular to a majority of voters.
Last year, the new dark money group “Opportunity for All Action Fund” spent approximately $600,000 on Reps. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), and Danny Davis (D–Ill.), to ensure they defeated their progressive primary opponents.
Some progressive candidates, like Pennsylvania’s Summer Lee, were able to surmount the influx of dark cash, mostly from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee PAC (AIPAC).
A 2022 Wesleyan Media Project study reveals groups not required to disclose donors funded almost 70% of pro-Democratic Senate ads up by August of last year’s election cycle.
In September, Judith Whitmer lamented:
Letting our primaries devolve into auctions, rather than elections, has done more than simply create an unequal and unfair playing field. In races around the nation, we’ve seen these underhanded tactics used to silence debate on critical issues, with competing views buried under an avalanche of dark money-funded messaging.
Larry Cohen, DNC member and board chair of the progressive organization Our Revolution, founded after Vt. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, explained:
[DNC and state-level Democratic parties] have extensive rules relating to the nominating process, which provide many opportunities to block dark and dirty money. What happens inside the Democratic Party and inside party caucuses of elected Democrats is frequently ignored by progressives, who are generally more comfortable protesting and working solely outside the party. Of course, protest is essential, and new party-building is fine. But for those of us who believe we must fight in every possible way to advance progressive issues and win real power, we ignore party reform at our peril, even as we demand broader electoral reforms, such as fusion and ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and more.
There must be a constitutional amendment stating “money is not speech and corporations are not people.”
As long as there is not, we will continue to see the wealthiest individuals beholden to corporate interests reigning supreme over more grassroots progressive candidates.
Fortunately, Calif. Rep. Adam Schiff introduced such an amendment last year.
According to press release, the amendment seeks to:
…Make it clear the Constitution does not restrict the ability of Congress or the states to propose reasonable, content-neutral limitations on private campaign contributions and independent expenditures. It would also allow states to enact public campaign financing systems, which can restrict the influence of corporate and private wealth.
Rep. Schiff explained:
Thanks to one disastrous ruling, wealthy megadonors, corporations, and special interest groups have been able to influence elections when that power should belong with the American people. This has eroded faith in the government’s ability to deliver for the people and their families. Dark money should have no place in our democracy. It is time to return power to the people, and overturn Citizens United once and for all.
We all need to call our congressional representatives at 202–224–3121 and demand money be removed from politics. It isn’t going to happen right away just because we want it to, but if enough of us are heard, our elected officials — at least the ones who care — will understand how important this is instead of it being just another undemocratic feature to withstand.
It doesn’t have to be this way.