After reading Zephyr Teachout's CORRUPTION IN AMERICA, I was invited to a discussion group with the author.
Zephyr Teachout is an organizer, educator, and scholar with years of experience as a leader in the fights for economic and political equality and against concentration of wealth and control in the hands of the few. Currently the CEO/Board Chair of MAYDAY.US, a PAC created by Lawrence Lessig, an associate professor of law at Fordham Law School, was previously a visiting professor of law at Duke University and a lecturer at the University of Vermont. She has worked as an antitrust and media expert and served as the Director of Internet Organizing for the 2004 Howard Dean Presidential campaign. In 2008 she co-founded a New Way Forward, an organization built to break up the power of big banks, and was involved with Occupy Wall Street. She ran for the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of New York in 2014, getting 33.47% of the vote, and remains actively involved with local politics.
Zephyr started her talk with these excerpts from her book:
When Louis XVI presented Benjamin Franklin with a snuff box encrusted with 408 diamonds and insert with the King's portrait, the gift troubled Americans: it threatened to "corrupt" Franklin by clouding his judgement or altering his attitude toward the French in subtle psychological ways. This broad understating of political corruption, rooted in ideals of civic virtue, was a driving force at the Constitutional Convention. In the end he gave the box to his daughter, Sarah, who removed the diamonds and sold many of them. The remaining king's portrait sits at the American Philosophical Society.
For two centuries the framers' ideas about corruption flourished in the courts, even in the absence of clear rules governing voters, civil officers, and elected officials. Should a law that was passed by a state legislature be overturned because half of its members were bribed? What kinds of lobbying activity were corrupt, and what kinds were legal? When does an implicit promise count as bribery?
Mail Fraud Act (1872) - Covered state and federal officials, criminalized the use of the mails for fraud, including defrauding the public. In 1927 added criminalizing the theft of honest service.
Tillman Act (1907) - Prohibited corporations from contributing money to federal campaigns.
Hatch Act (1939) - Regulating Primaries: Limited contributions and expenditures in congressional elections, prohibited all federal employees from soliciting campaign contributions, in 1940 placed limits on individual contribution to a candidate and limit on National Party Committee spending.
Hobbs Act (1940) - Criminalized the use of state and federal officials using their official position to extort funds.
Taft-Hartley Act (1947) - Barred both labor unions and corporations from making expenditures and contributions in Federal elections.
Federal Bribery Statue (1962) - Covered federal officials and criminalized the giving or receiving something of value in exchange for official action or as a reward for prior official action.
In the 1970s the U.S. Supreme Court began to narrow the definition of corruption, and the meaning has since changed dramatically. No case makes that clearer than 'Citizen United'.
In 2010, one of the most consequential Court decisions in American political history gave wealth corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion treated corruption as nothing more than explicit bribery, a narrow conception later echoed by Chief Justice Roberts in deciding 'McCutcheon v. FEC' in 2014.
With unlimited spending transforming American politics for the worse, warns Teachout, Citizens United and McCutcheon were not just bad laws but bad history.
"If the American experiment in self-government is to have a future, then we must revive the traditional meaning of corruption and embrace an old ideal", she said.
The framers believed that a citizen has several public functions: the vote, the jury, and public speaking about matters of public importance. Today our opportunity to vote is being repressed by state voter laws and our political voice is being silenced by the roar of dark money of the few.
The author ends with her Anti-Corruption Principle. Her hope is that courts and citizens will recognize that the Anti-Corruption principle is a foundational American principle and will be incorporated into jurisprudence and public debate. Corruption is abuse of public power for private benefit, whether they are: lobbyists, politicians, or citizens. Her hope is that lawmakers will pass public campaign funding systems and anti-monopoly laws to protect our civic culture.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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