Ways to solve our political mess

I’ve been pondering the crazy state we find ourselves regarding politics in this country. Getting elected today (particularly to a national office but local ones as well) comes down to two things:

1. Raising gobs of money
2. Getting your message out.

This tends to get politicians chasing the big donors (i.e. large corporations when aiming for Congress or higher) when they really should be responsive to their constituents instead. Lately we’ve seen how that’s working out, aren’t we?

It’s obvious that we need to do something about the money. So, why are gobs of money needed? To accomplish goal #2: to get your message out. Buying broadcast time is hugely expensive but it’s the quickest way of reaching voters. What if candidates didn’t have to raise money for broadcast time, though? What if air time was made freely available in the name of patriotism?

It’s not that big of a leap, you know. America’s airwaves are a public resource under the Communications Act of 1934. Broadcast licenses still require broadcasters to provide some sort of public service benefit (though I’m not sure how carefully some follow these rules). America should come up with a system where qualified candidates are provided free airtime.

How would this work? I have no clue. But some broadcasters already do offer free political airtime in the form of candidate debates. Raleigh’s Capitol Broadcasting has been doing this for local races for some time now. I believe it would be fair to do so for bigger races.

Speaking of fair, the government should reimpose the fairness doctrine as well, so that some of the baldface lies being told by some political groups can be adequately addressed. And perhaps broadcasters will be a little more active in fact-checking if they know they could be on the hook for paying to correct a guest politican’s gaffes. I think it’s a small price to pay for a broadcaster to be granted free use of the public airwaves, don’t you?

Will this crazy pipe dream ever happen? Not likely. Our media is making a killing on political airtime. The vast majority of our media outlets are owned by big corporations who enjoy being the gatekeeper of democracy – and ensuring that only corporation-friendly candidates are invited inside. The big media won’t give this up without a huge fight, I know. But I believe it needs to be done.

The next thing that needs to be done is to reverse the dubious Supreme Court ruling granting corporations personhood status. Corporations aren’t people. Few corporations, if any, pay taxes. None have any rights spelled out in our U.S. Constitution. Corporations don’t have a finite lifespan. To say that a corporation has the same rights as I do is ludicrous.

Sadly in America, though, we live by the Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules. Corporations don’t have the right to vote so they sure as hell have no business pouring money into politics. For this reason, I support the Move To Amend movement which is working to amend the U.S. Constitution to explicitly state that the rights of the people are just that: the rights of the people.

I think this move alone would go a long way towards restoring the proper balance into our political system. The cynical side of me says an amendment will never happen, but a tiny part of me clings to the fact that if enough people agree, it can happen. Maybe one day it will happen.

Lastly, with the proper role of corporations defined in the Constitution, it would follow that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case should be overturned. Money is not speech: money is simply money. America needs to reestablish the boundaries between our politicians and the corporations working hard to buy them off.

These are the kind of trust-busting steps that visionary presidents like Theodore Roosevelt once took. As Drew Westen pointed out in his recent New York Times opinion piece, America desperately needs a reformer like Teddy today. Far too much of our government is geared towards benefiting large corporations at the expense of everyone else. It’s time we restore some sanity to our system of government, and I think these steps may be a good start.