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United States midterm elections approach - the cost goes up

(People's Daily Online)    08:32, October 23, 2014
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The United States midterm elections will be held on November 4, 2014. In this new round of the political cycle American stakeholders have poured even more effort into the battle for funding to fight for future political decision-making power. Never has the nature of “money politics” in the USA been more openly exposed.

With growing funds available, the high-tech companies intend to increase their political influence

Current data indicates that most high-tech companies, which previously offered their support to the Democratic Party, are now shifting their funds to the Republicans. In the midterm election of 2010, democratic candidates secured 55% of the funding from science and technology interests, while the republicans obtained 45%. In 2014, these proportions have shifted to 48% and 52% respectively. Reed Galen, a consultant from American Republican, believes that America's high-tech companies may not share the views of the Democratic Party on social issues, and are tending to opt for “business is business”. The high-tech companies need Republican support in matters of taxation, the immigration system for skilled workers, superintendence of intelligence agencies, market regulations, and other important issues related to their interests.

Two decisions of the high court have released black funding from its cage

In order to restrict the epidemic of black funding in politics after the “Watergate Scandal”, the USA launched regulations to impose some limits on political funding. These regulations limited personal political donations to USD 123,200. However, in recent years the US Supreme Court has passed two major decisions that have released black political funding from its cage, enabling it once more to throw its weight around.

In 2010, the Supreme Court made a ruling in the “Citizens United" case that a “Super Political Action Committee” (Super PAC) was allowed to solicit donations without any limit. Such donations are generally not disclosed to the public, so they are referred to as “black funding”. The decision has had a huge impact on the pattern of American campaign funding, with the result that all sorts of stakeholders can now influence the election to the tune of millions of dollars as “shadow entities”.

On April 2nd this year, the Supreme Court of the USA, which is composed of 9 judges, ruled on the case of Mccutcheon and RNC v. Federal Election Commission with a 5:4 majority, overthrowing the upper limit of total funding for American political campaigns. According to statistics from the American “Center for Responsive Politics,” 310 donors have broken the previous limit since this ruling was issued Supreme Court in April this year.

These political donations, blatantly offering money in an attempt to influence the result of the election, are nothing other than a bet on the hope of obtaining payback at some point in the future, in the form of service to to the donors' own interests. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker obtained $1 million dollars from a single donor - Michael Sullivan of SAC Capital – after a meeting with him.

“Democracy has been usurped”

A Washington Post report pointed out that the bald-faced “money politics” phenomenon is attracting more and more criticism as people tire of the political system being bought by the rich. Al Gore, the former vice-president, believes that the phenomenon is a thorough disaster for the American political system, and that democracy has been usurped. The result is that the country has been completely paralyzed and immobilized. He criticized members of the State Senate and House of Representatives who spend five hours a day collect funds from wealthy donors - who are hardly likely to provide them with money for nothing.

James Hohmann, a senior correspondent of an American political news website, says that since the ruling in the Mccutcheon case, all records of funds spent in electoral campaigns have been broken. Hohmann believes that the problem with the political system of USA lies in the fact that the presidential election is held once every four years, with one midterm election, which traps the USA in a continual election process that involves spending huge sums of money. “There are massive shortcomings in the current American political system," says Hohmann. "They have to be resolved.”

The article is edited and translated from 《美国“钱主政治”愈演愈烈》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Wen Xian. 

(Editor:Huang Jin、Zhang Qian)
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