John Diaz: How two billionaires are changing the election game.
The worst fears of critics of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision have been realized. Big money from special interests, often with the true source hidden from voters, is no longer just gaining disproportionate influence in our political system. It’s now about to eclipse the fiscal wherewithal of the major parties.
Last week, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch served notice that their network intended to spend a staggering $889 million in the 2016 elections. To put that figure in context, it is expected to equal about the total raised and spent by each party’s presidential nominee. Or to use another yardstick: The Republican National Committee and the GOP’s two congressional campaign committees spent $657 million in the 2012 election cycle.
Why should you care that the Koch brothers’ narrow network will be spending on a scale of a presidential nominee who has received contributions from millions of Americans with an individual limit of $2,600 per donation?
Let us count the ways.
The basic premise of campaign finance law since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s is that the size of a contribution of any individual or interest group should be limited and the source of the donation should be disclosed to voters. The Koch brothers, who count campaign finance law among the long list of government intrusions they detest, make a mockery of both principles.
Citizens United opened a wide window for special interests to exploit — and the Koch brothers have made the most of the opportunity to avoid the dollar limits and disclosure requirements that accompany direct contributions to a political party or candidate.
Making a direct pitch
Instead, they funnel most of their money through specially created nonprofit groups that are not required to reveal their donors. Before Citizens United, those groups were prohibited from engaging in “express advocacy” — in other words, directly pitching for or against a candidate — or even running television or radio ads that mention a candidate by name within 60 days of an election.
Now, any outside group — with unlimited donations from corporations, labor or wealthy individuals — can make a direct pitch to voters right up until election day. The only caveat with these “independent” expenditures is they cannot work in collaboration with a candidate’s campaign.
But make no mistake: The campaigns are well aware of the potency of this outside help. The Koch brothers’ annual winter retreat at Palm Springs attracted aspiring Republican presidential candidates Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.
So who are these brothers, who stir so much fear among Democrats, and what is their agenda? Charles, 78, and David, 74, own Koch Industries of Wichita, Kan., the second-largest privately held U.S. company. They are worth an estimated $41 billion each.
Their overriding philosophy is promotion of deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government. Among their specific targets are opposition to climate change — they are heavily invested in energy — and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential candidate in 1980, when its platform was so absolutist in its abhorrence of government that it called for repeal of Social Security, income taxes, seat-belt and helmet laws, welfare, compulsory education and agencies that included the Postal Service, Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Their libertarian streak remains evident in Charles Koch’s recent essay deploring the “overcriminalization of America.” His interest in reforming the criminal justice system puts him in rare alliance with his otherwise liberal critics, but it does not appear to be one of the brothers’ litmus tests on the level of tax cuts, repeal of Obamacare or rollback of environmental regulation.
Their world view appears to have been shaped, at least in part, by their ardently anticommunist father, Fred Koch, who founded the company they inherited and built refineries in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He later became a founding member of the John Birch Society.
Futility of boycott
Of course, the Koch brothers are not the only big-time players in this Wild West era of campaign finance, and Republicans are not the only beneficiaries. The Democrats have their sugar daddies in George Soros, Tom Steyer and many others. The Kochs, however, approach it with a scale and lack of transparency that exceeds all bounds of audacity.
On “The Nightly Show” last week, Comedy Central’s Larry Wilmore had a humorous segment about the futility of trying to boycott the Koch brothers’ empire in response to their $889 million pledge. He rolled through their products: everything from Dixie cups to greeting cards to Lycra to Brawny paper towels to three brands of soft toilet paper. Even if one drives an electric car and never boards an airplane — jet fuel is among its subsidiary ventures — it would be almost impossible to avoid lining the pockets of the billionaire brothers.
Two men so immersed in American capitalism should have a voice in public policy. The issue is whether their influence, by virtue of their campaign spending, should be so exponentially larger than the sum interests of millions of Americans whose quest for basic health care or a modest piece of the pie would be adversely affected by the Koch-promoted policies.