On Unilateral Disarmament

I think I may have touched on this topic before, but those readers familiar with my work know that I am not a fan of unilateral disarmament. Meaning things like, yes, I hate the fucking filibuster in the Senate, and I am a huge advocate of eliminating the filibuster altogether (none of the bullshit half-measures that have been proposed), BUT, if the Republicans re-take the Senate, the Democrats should not hesitate to use the filibuster at every given opportunity. Those are the rules of the game as they are currently written. So those are the rules we play by. When we change the rules, then we'll change our behavior. Not a second before that.

I bring this up in the context of Citizens United and Super-PAC money. I was reading this brief article on a debate between two candidates in a local state Senate race. The debate between these candidates, Democratic challenger Bridget Fleming and long-time Republican incumbent Ken LaValle, for some reason orbited around the influence of Super PAC money in the race. First let me point out that this is a pretty aggravating failure by the moderators since state senate candidates can't do ANYTHING about Citizens United or Super PAC influence. They just can't. We shouldn't be harping on this in a debate where time and access to the candidates is finite. I find it to be a massive failure of our media personalities when they continue to pepper candidates on policy issues they cannot possibly influence. We can't continue to give the public the impression that politicians can influence policies outside of their jurisdiction. These are the kinds of memes, when relentlessly (and falsely) perpetuated, ultimately undermine public confidence in government institutions. We come to expect specific politicians to fix all of our ills and inefficiencies when most politicians simply aren't empowered to enact the reforms we demand.

Anyway, what really grinds my gears in this article is actually a statement in the comment thread. Fleming, who rails against Super PAC influence in the debate, is accused of hypocrisy. I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I just can't help myself:

True George, Ms. Fleming is noble. Although I am curious as to why she has been making so much hay about how evil Super PAC's are, yet she recently cashed $10,000 in checks from Super PAC's? Please explain, I'm sure there is a rational explanation - maybe she needs the money from evildoers to fight evil? Looks like a typical do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do situation. Very courageous indeed.

Let's be clear about something here. There is absolutely nothing (zero, zilch, nada) hypocritical about soliciting Super PAC money while railing against the Supreme Court decision that unleashed Super PAC contributions. The floodgates have been opened. Bridget Fleming cannot plug the dike by unilaterally refusing Super PAC contributions. Nor can any other candidate, Democrat or Republican. In fact, that type of religious purity would only have the opposite effect. It would continually reward the candidates that support the Citizens United decision and continually punish the candidates who oppose the decision.

Let me use a sports analogy to demonstrate. Many National League fans hate the Designated Hitter rule. No doubt, many National League Managers hate the Designated Hitter rule. However, the DH is here to stay, whether we like it or not. It would be pretty foolish (and indeed a fireable offense), if a National League manager refused to use a DH in an interleague game in an American League stadium. We don't expect, nor should we expect, the NL manager to send up his .154 hitting pitcher out of some misguided dedication to traditional baseball rules. The reality of the situation is that the game has changed. Like the 3-point line in basketball. Or the two-point conversion rule in football. We do not ignore rule changes because we do not agree with those rule changes. If we disagree with those rules, you need to fight to get a seat at the table so we can change the rules. We don't sit on the sidelines and whine and stomp our feet and say, "That's not fair!!!" We play the game by the rules as they are currently constructed. There is no hypocrisy here.  I repeat. There is no hypocrisy here!  It's merely an acceptance of reality. And any candidate who ignores these realities does so at their own political peril.

Healthcare and the Supreme Court

So I'm reading how today was a disastrous day for healthcare proponents before the Supreme Court. You know what? It shouldn't fucking matter!

Honestly, this case shouldn't have even made it to the Supreme Court. The mere fact that it did make it to the Supreme Court is ipso facto evidence that the conservative majority plans to overturn it. That's a fucking joke. I mean, an even worse joke than Citizens United and Bush v Gore. If the Supreme Court plans to overturn the individual mandate, you might as well throw out the entire Constitution. It is literally a meaningless document that has no standing whatsoever. There is no meaningful difference between the mandate and a tax. And if the federal government cannot tax its citizens, it literally has zero power to do anything, including raising money for, and providing for, a standing army. Might as well throw out the document and start over. It's more toothless than the Articles of Confederation. And we saw how that worked out.

It's horrifying that I have to pray for a Hail Mary from that fraud John Roberts to save this country from sliding into the abyss.

On Unilateral Disarmament

Those who know me are aware that I've worked with non-ideological, good government non-profits like Common Cause to strip away the influence of money in politics. I truly believe that buying political influence is the most pernicious development in US Politics (well, that and the use of the filibuster in the Senate). I also believe that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision ranks right up there with Bush v Gore, Plessy v Ferguson, and the Dred Scott decision as the worst in American history. Unfortunately however, the cat is out of the bag and Super PACs are a reality in American campaign finance in 2012. Thus, as much as I hate the role of campaign donations in American elections (and particularly the influence of the finance, defense, energy, and healthcare industries), it is the height of absurdity to suggest that the Obama campaign should forego the use of SuperPacs as former Senator and campaign finance reformer Russ Feingold does here. I have never, and will never, be a proponent of unilateral disarmament. These are the rules of the game and we shall play by these rules, as dismaying as they may well be. I mean, if you're the manager of the Angels, and you hate the DH rule, you don't hit your pitcher as a matter of principle. It's absurd, it's idiotic, and it does long-term damage to your own long term aims. It is not hypocritical to work within the system at hand, even if you object to specific rules that govern the system. One can legitimately criticize Citizens United, criticize the use and existence of Super PACs, and still create and empower a Super PAC to campaign on your own behalf. You do not lose credibility if you do so. Hell, you can create a Super PAC to lobby against the Citizens United decision, up to and including the passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution banning Super PACs. (This is in fact the kind of behavior we are seeing with the Colbert Super PAC). Listen, I'm not making exceptions or engaging in partisan rationalization. I think Democrats should use the filibuster if (when) they lose the Senate even though I despise the filibuster and find it to be a fundamental threat to democratic governance in general and progressive legislation in particular. But I also think Republicans can brag about earmarks and pork barrel projects that they bring back home to their districts, even if they hate the process by which these appropriations are budgeted. It's the current rules of the game and its perfectly fair for Republicans to object to the practice but wield the benefits of the existing standards (However, it is important to note that this standard does not apply to Republican representatives who rail against government spending, claiming it hurts the local economy, but who then credit pork barrel spending for creating local jobs. That is a case in which representatives cannot, and should not, have it both ways. You can't claim stimulus spending hurts other Americans but helps employ, say, local Houstonians).
This does not mean we stop fighting to reform the campaign finance system. Hell, I don't know how we fix American governance without doing so. At least on the state level, I think the public financing of elections are our best way forward. However, I don't think public financing is feasible at the national level (as presidential candidates will begin to opt-out anyway - see Obama 2008). Even opensecrets.org seems to be waving the white flag. But clearly something must be done to reduce the influence of billionaire bankers, oil conglomerates and media empires. Otherwise, we are going to see some shitty legislation continue to funnel down the turnpike (cough, cough SOPA). But Obama turning down Super PAC money doesn't get us any closer to that solution. Yes, his administration is made-up of some pretty terrible corporate lackeys with deep connections to the industries they are supposed to regulate. But the alternatives, who promise to strike down healthcare reform and the gutted down Dodd-Frank legislation on their first days of office, are much, MUCH, worse.