In Colorado, the future of municipal and state elections in the United States is being decided. In the current recall efforts of two Colorado state senators lie the question of the sanctity of local politics and the role of money in the American political system.
Gun rights advocates, enraged by a sweeping set of gun control laws passed by the Democrat-controlled Colorado Legislature, have sought to send a message to the gun control camp by seeking the recall of two seemingly vulnerable state senators — Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and Sen. Angela Giron (D-Pueblo) — in Republican-majority areas. The scheme — planned, organized and executed in part by the National Rifle Association — threatens to create a tangible, indisputable example of the price politicians can pay for opposing gun rights.
“This is beyond the bounds of the normal use of recall,” said Craig Hughes, a Democratic political consultant. There’s been “a great deal of effort put forward to try to knock out these two senators,” he adds. “Failing it would send the message that this isn’t the way to go.”
National politics, made local
Initially, organizers targeted four senators, but failed to get enough signatures to put the additional two on the ballot for recall. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., legislation was pushed through by the Democrats requiring universal background checks for all gun sales and bans of ammunition magazines in excess of 15 rounds. Similar national legislation was proposed, only to meet heavy resistance from the NRA and ultimately to be voted down. However, in Colorado — the site of the Columbine school shooting in 1999 and the Aurora movie theater massacre in July 2012 — there was a stronger impetus to do something about gun violence.
The NRA, in a support mailer, painted Morse as having “led the charge to pass extreme and onerous anti-gun state legislation in Denver,” adding that “responsible gun owners and sportsmen will be forever burdened by his misguided leadership in the Colorado Senate.”
Christy Le Lait, the campaign manager for Morse, told CNN that the “NRA is investing in these recall races to send a message to every other local official to not pass any other gun safety measures or else the NRA will come after you as well.”
“We addressed [tighter gun regulations] this session, but this is what we get for that response,” Morse told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
The recall battle has deteriorated to allegation-hurling, with each side objecting to outside influence on the other side. The elections have been swamped in outside money: the NRA, so far, has given about $361,700 and the Koch Brothers have given an undisclosed amount to the recall efforts. On the other side, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (I) Mayors Against Illegal Guns have given $350,000 and MAIG-backer Eli Broad has given $250,000 to support the senators. These were matched by nearly $1.5 million in local fundraising for the two senators, making this one of the most expensive local elections in modern history.
“This is a battle for Colorado’s soul,” offered John Caldara, president of the Independence Institute and a supporter of the recalls. “Do we maintain the greatness of Colorado, or are we on a certain fast track to becoming California? … It comes down to a question of who controls policy in Colorado, Michael Bloomberg or the state of Colorado and its representatives?”
It is said that all politics is local, and it it is thought that national ideologies are bred from the ideas most important to the voter at home. The recent trend, however, seems to be testing if the inverse is true — can national issues be presented and successfully argued locally?
This push to settle national issues at the local level has created a situation wherein non-locals are influencing local affairs. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — which recognized donations to political campaigns as a form of free speech — states that previously had stricter campaign finance rules were forced to submit to open donations. This has created a glut of largely unmonitored special interest dollars going into the coffers of judges, state legislators, governors, treasurers and commissioners.
“Dark money”
According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, 26 states fail to require essential disclosure of independent spending in state elections. In regard to laws explicitly requiring the disclosure of the source and the amount of funds used in election ads and in candidate advocacy, the majority of states — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming — have either laws insufficient to force a complete and independent reporting, or none at all.
This becomes important when the issue of “dark money” is factored into the state politics equation. In 2010, for example, Philip Lloyd of Washington state, a Democratic political strategist, started and managed dozens of political action committees — some of which directly fed into others — to disguise the donations of 15 donors targeting 16 state races. Despite the fact that Washington’s disclosure laws are among the best in the nation, the most the average voter was able to ascertain from the mandatory disclosures were a listing of meaningless PAC names, such as “Stand Up for Citizens” and “Stand With Citizens.”
With the proliferation of “social welfare” groups — which, as a “voter education” group, is not required to disclose its donors, per IRS rules and sequential court rulings — outside donors can easily buy influence in any race they choose. In Wisconsin, massive amounts of outside support for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) defense against state Democrats’ recall effort led to a spending imbalance that helped Walker to retain his seat. In New Jersey, dueling attack ads — one from the pro-Gov. Chris Christie (R) Committee for Our Children’s Future and the other from One New Jersey– are filling the airwaves, with no one certain where the money comes from.
Last year, futhermore, outside spending played a role in the gubernatorial races in Montana, Washington and New Hampshire and influenced supreme court races in 18 states.
The true danger in “dark money” election spending is not so much that the election is being bought, however. In 2012, the NRA spent nearly $18 million in various national elections only to lose 95 percent of those races. Results from early voting show that both Morse and Giron are favored to retain their seats.
Media Matters reports:
Media Matters totaled spending by the NRA Political Victory Fund and the NRA Institute for Legislative Action as reported by the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation to determine the total amount of money spent on races where the NRA-preferred candidate was victorious. Of $10,536,106 spent by the NRA-PVF, 0.83 percent or $87,450 was spent on races where the NRA-backed candidate won. Of $7,419,644 spent by the NRA-ILA, 10.74 percent or $796,870 was spent on races where the NRA-backed candidate won. In sum, the NRA spent a total of $17,955,750 with $884,369, or approximately one out of every 20 dollars, going to victorious NRA-backed candidates.
While it’s debatable whether it’s possible to buy an election, what “dark money” does buy is influence.
The gun control debate in Washington was defeated by members of Congress afraid that the NRA could throw its support behind a primary challenger that would appeal to the Republican core. Throughout recent electoral cycles, incumbent Republicans have been defeated in primaries by challenges who swayed the Republican electorate, only to prove unelectable in the general election. For the average House member sitting in a gerrymandered district, the boogeyman is not the Democrats but the conservative special interest group asking for his vote.
But this is only one side of the coin when it comes to “dark money.” The other problem lies in the fact that this influx of money into local elections are raising the cost to run. In order to be competitive, candidates will have to be able to raise the money to match the outside funding that could flood the race. For politicians from poor districts, such as minority candidates, this may constitute a glass ceiling.
Each successive race that proves to have been successfully influenced by outside funding will encourage others to intercede. In doing so, this effectively denies local democratic access to the residents of the affected community — particularly, the poor.
There is an overwhelming call to resolve the loophole Citizens United opened. Across the nation, more than 40 pieces of legislation have passed or are pending in the state legislatures that would improve the transparency of state election spending. One bill, S.2748, which is currently in the New Jersey Senate, would force “social welfare” groups registered in the state to disclose their donors if they participate in state elections. Another bill, which has passed the New York Legislature and has been signed into law, forces all tax-exempt groups that lobby the state government to disclose their donors.
For a state known for its secrets, this is big.
Without the ability to turn off the outside money “tap,” disclosure and public access to information about election spending are the only protections the public have in ensuring fair representation. At the very least, the people deserve to know who, exactly, their representatives will represent: the people who elected them or the moneymen who bankrolled them.