One of the most ground-breaking Supreme Court decisions in the last ten years regarding politics and law-making was the 2010 case of Citizens United vs. FEC 30 S.Ct. 876. This landmark case was decided in favor of FEC over Citizens United which meant that corporations could pump in as much funding as they saw fit into any candidate which they chose. On the surface, this does not seem like a very bad idea, after all, in a democracy, it is the person who is the most favored who gets the job, not the richest. But, as the astute observers at ‘The Story of Stuff Project’ noted that this is not the case. More money means more campaigning and advertising which means less presentation of actual facts.
Kevin McCarthy is one of California’s leading politicians. In 2014, he pooled a whopping $5.9 million which placed him head and shoulders above all the other candidates in other districts and funded his run for Speaker. But the question to be asked is where did this money come from? After the Citizens United vs. FEC case, it is clear that it would be the large California corporations which would fund him, but even this is not the whole story. Nick Gass of Politico provided a list of 9 interesting facts about McCarthy which should shed light on his funding. Firstly, he was the first person in his immediate family to enter politics as a Republican. This means that he would not have had the instant connections and basic funding which the great political dynasties of the country have. Rather, as Gass noted, he was something of a self-made man. The second interesting fact is that his college degrees are not in Political Science or History or any of the other standard liberal arts or legal subjects which would usually launch people on to political careers, but was business – he earned an M.B.A. before he began serious campaigning back in the ‘90s.
This is a very telling fact, especially in light of the 2010 case. Being by far the best-funded candidate in California (he went on raise an unprecedented $11 million dollars in 2015), the sources of funding need to be looked into. Laura Gottesdiener of Alternet provided a list of the biggest beneficiaries of the 2010 case and consequently, also some of the biggest funders in American politics – Mentzer Media Services, Crossroads Media LLC, Waterfront Strategies (GMMB) and Mundy Katowitz Media, to name a few. All of these corporations have provided in excess of $59 million to campaigners and hence puts the candidate of their choice well beyond the reach of any other opponent, even if that opponent would be much more suited to the tasks of their office.
The fact that McCarthy was a trained businessman is not surprising and seems to indicate that he, like many politicians today, are riding on the wave of unlimited corporate funding. The largest contributors to McCarthy’s 2014 campaign were Real estate, oil and gas, insurance and pharmaceutical industries which clearly reflects in his agendas and policies. As any good businessman, he has targeted the most lucrative sectors and pulled them to his side (or was pulled to their side) resulting in much less funding for other candidates. Without sectors like oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals, other candidates simply have no sources for their funding, at least not at the scale which McCarthy has it.
It seems that the Supreme Court decision has caused more harm than good for American Democracy and I for one think that a good step towards the Constitutional Amendment which ‘The Story about Stuff’ commentator talked about would be to find a way to overturn the decision of the Court or at least galvanize the people by allowing them to see the decision for what it really is.
Work Cited
Gass, Nick. ‘The 9 things you should know about Kevin McCarthy’. Politico. 10 Aug
2015. Web. 18 Feb 2016.
Gottesdiener, Laura. ‘The top 10 beneficiaries of ‘Citizens United’ in the 2012
election’. Alternet. 17 Jan 2013. Web. 18 Feb 2016.
Louis Fox (dir.). Story of Citizens United vs. FEC. TheStoryofStuff.org. Web. 18 Feb
2016.
N/A. Rep. Kevin McCarthy. OpenSecrets.org: Center for Responsive Politics. Web.
17 Feb 2016.
