Does the candidate with the most cash win?
Hey there, everyone. We’ve got 14 days until the 2020 election. For you, that means only 336 hours left to avoid talking about politics with your family.
As for the candidates? It’s crunch time. The next 16 days are absolutely vital to their campaigns and the fundraising efforts that keep ads running and staffers up to their eyeballs in pizza. And this election cycle is set to obliterate spending records.
So what better time than now to tackle campaign finance here on Business Casual?
On Tuesday, you’ll hear from Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics (aka the org behind OpenSecrets). Armed with heaps of data and decades of experience tracking election spending, Sheila will answer one very important question: Does the best fundraiser win?
On Thursday, you’ll hear from Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who ran for president in 2016 on a single-issue platform: campaign finance reform. Want to guess what I spoke about with him?
These conversations opened my eyes to just how much money is inextricably linked to our democratic process. Even more thought-provoking, though, is learning where it comes from. I, for one, think we should care a whole lot more. Let’s get into it.
Holding the 1% Accountable Keeps More Than Bezos Honest
Consider power for a moment. Who do you consider the most powerful people in our country?
To me, real power is wielded not by the representatives on Capitol Hill but by corporate America. And that’s because the reason those representatives are where they are is often because they have friends in high C-suites, from NYC to Silicon Valley.
Unlike yours, these friends go beyond buying your coffee when you forget your wallet. They donate enormous sums of money to political campaigns and causes each and every cycle, often unbeknownst to their employees and customers.
But like your friends, they typically expect something in return for their loan. The interest rate isn’t “it’ll all come out in the wash,” though. It’s the promise to govern in a way favorable to that deep-pocketed businessperson’s pursuits.
That has deeply corrupted American politics. It breeds lawmakers who are focused on serving the interests of a small number of major donors rather than their constituents, as Lawrence Lessig will point out.
I take no issue with the legality of wealthy Americans donating to political causes—that’s their right. But it’s also our responsibility as the 99% to hold wealthy Americans accountable for the decisions they make with their money. Let’s talk about the ways corporate America’s czars influence elections and how we keep them in check.
To start, it’s important to recognize just how effective full coffers are in election efforts. In 2018, top spenders won their elections 88.5% of the time in the House and 82.9% of the time in the Senate.
So where does that money come from?
- Only 0.95% of the U.S. population donated more than $200 to federal candidates, PACs, outside groups, or parties from 2019 to 2020.
- But those who did donate more than $200 are responsible for 73.6% of all contributions.
- There were 47,466 donors who gave more than $10,000 in the 2020 cycle so far. Their grand total for giving? $2,393,179,877.
Big money = big influence.
A quick scan of OpenSecrets’s compilation of the top donors during the 2020 election cycle reads similarly to the Fortune 500. The top 20 donors represent leadership from Las Vegas Sands, Blackstone, Energy Transfer Partners, 21st Century Fox, Bain Capital, Charles Schwab, Marcus & Millichap, and more.
Most of the time, corporate leaders’ donations fly under the radar, even when they total north of $20 million. Rarely do we see what happened to billionaire Stephen Ross, majority owner of Related Companies, whose subsidiaries include Equinox and SoulCycle—remember when he volunteered to hold a Hamptons fundraiser for President Trump and everyone canceled their memberships at his businesses in protest?
That was a rare example of leaders’ political inclinations impacting bottom lines.
- We can’t expect corporate America to abstain entirely from campaign finance.
- But we also can’t allow ourselves—the media, the electorate, whomever you are—to let corporate America’s leaders off the hook as people independent of their businesses. They run the show at the top, and their corporations are reflections of their values.
It’s time to recognize that politics embed themselves into every part of our lives, including our professions. Sure, CEOs have lives outside the office. But when you’re a billionaire who runs a billion-plus-dollar company, you must be held to a high standard of accountability.
After all, the numbers show that these wealthy leaders are the ones donating the most...and since the campaigns with the most money mostly win...it’s reasonable to assume they’re influencing election outcomes. Kind of like the transitive property.
Now, we can’t dictate how individuals should spend their fortunes. But as consumers, we are powerful. If you disagree with corporate leaders’ political stances, take your own stand and stop supporting their businesses. Because the chain of events might look something like this:
- You stop supporting them.
- Their business suffers.
- They make less money.
- They donate less money.
And more importantly, take the time to arm yourself with the knowledge of where your favorite businesses’ leaders donate the most. Because knowledge is the purest form of power.
It’s certainly a different way of thinking about corporate responsibility, but it’s overdue. For too long, we the electorate have considered posting a photo of our “I Voted” sticker to Instagram to be enough advocacy. The numbers show that the race is often won well before the ballots are cast. And we’re not the ones who have the most effect on the outcomes. (Side note: Don’t skip voting. It’s still vital.)
I vow to pay closer attention to where entrepreneurial royalty siphons its money each election cycle. None of us win when we allow our politicians to become marionettes for the 1%.
This matters. So long as lawmakers are beholden to the wealthy few who fund their campaigns, they will fail to work for the interests of their actual constituents: you and me.
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