Asked to describe the connection between money and politics, Kelda Helen Roys drops one adjective, then another: “Inseparable.” “Insufferable.”
As the Democratic state Assembly rep from Madison sees it, money has infiltrated every nook and cranny of politics. It keeps good people from seeking office, and it drives the agenda of those who are there.
Roys even feels sorry for the donors: “I think everyone who gives money in politics wishes that they didn’t have to.”
But there’s another adjective she could add to her list: Unavoidable.
Roys, who is not seeking reelection to a third term next year in order to pursue the U.S. congressional seat being vacated by Democrat Tammy Baldwin, estimates that she currently spends 25 to 30 hours each week on the phone, talking to potential contributors.
One of three declared contenders in the safely Democratic district, along with state Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison and Dane County Treasurer Dave Worzala, Roys knows she faces a tough challenge in which fundraising will play a critical role.
Yet Roys, 32, says she’s running in part on behalf of those “frustrated with a system that values money and insider connections over people.”
You want a different kind of political system than one driven by dollars? How much can you contribute?
Roys enjoys talking to potential supporters and likes to think that by asking people to “invest” in her campaign, she’s “giving them an opportunity to advance their own values.”
Right now, she believes, the values of corporate America dominate the political process. Besides the vast amounts spent on elections and lobbyists, Roys flags the rise of right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and conservative policy groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council that seek to “reshape the political environment in this country.”
Once, she notes, there was broad political agreement in the United States around the goal of reducing poverty. Now she finds it hard to imagine a president making poverty reduction a signature cause. She attributes this shift to successful conservative efforts to focus resentment on the less fortunate.
Roys, chairwoman of the Assembly Democratic Caucus, believes much of what’s happened in Wisconsin this year under Republican Gov. Scott Walker has been shaped by these outside forces.
“Clearly, Wisconsin was just one part of a national plan” — funded by right-wing corporate interests — “to roll back workers’ rights, consumers’ rights, health care, public education and women’s rights,” she says.
The outside interests that back this agenda, Roys predicts, will also do their part to help Walker survive a recall challenge: “It could be a $100 million gubernatorial race. It’s really mind-blowing.”
Roys is the author of a bill, AB 296, that would remove the ability of candidates in recall elections to raise funds in excess of normal limits for recall-related expenses. She doesn’t know whether the bill will get a hearing. No Republicans have signed on as cosponsors.
Walker’s recent call for a special session on jobs included several bills authored by Democrats. But the recent legislative floor period ended without any of those bills being passed.
Roys suspects the governor’s nod in the direction of bipartisanship was just for show, saying he’s “pretty well gotten everything he’s wanted, everything he’s willing to spend political capital on.”
Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie says the governor still supports these Democratic bills. “And if you look at the bills that passed, they had widespread bipartisan support.”
Roys, for her part, gives a nod to bipartisanship in sizing up the problem: “It’s true the Republicans are a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, but that doesn’t mean Democrats aren’t also tremendously influenced by corporate money.”
Good to know.
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There is a weak link in our democracy. So much depends upon the citizenry possessing relevant and factual information about the effects of our existing policies as well as reasonable approximations of the consequences of legislative proposals. The so-called “fourth estate”, also known as the free press, is pretty much free to report the story however they see fit.
This is not to say that the commercialized free press tends to report out-and out-lies, sometimes they do, but promoting an out-and-out lie is hard to sustain. When the lie is finally exposed, credibility is compromised. A much better way to mislead the public is to focus on red herrings and present the story within the context of a paradigm that obscures the truth.
A contemporary example of this phenomenon is the way the commercialized free press is consistently mischaracterizing the Occupy Wall Street movement. A deceptive narrative that the mainstream media is pitching hard is that OWS is a Democratic Party alternative to the Tea Party, and whereas the Tea Party is opposing big government, OWS is opposing big money. The truth is that both occupiers and rank-and-file members of the Tea Party are opposed to the corrupting influence of big money on our political process. Another truth is that top Democrats as well as top Republicans are recipients of sizable corporate endowments and are beneficiaries of our system of crony capitalism.
So why would the commercialized free press deliberately obfuscate these truths? Read more » http://www.outlierideas.com/2011/11/fourth-estate-accountability-sports.html