Hillary Clinton is making campaign finance reform a major plank of her presidential run.
Laugh if you like at this risible pledge from a candidate who will shatter all previous fundraising records. But don’t call it hypocrisy. It’s something worse than hypocrisy.
Clinton, in advocating the same restrictions on political speech Democrats have sought for years, is pushing for a legal regime that would protect her from criticism while increasing her power and her own fundraising advantages.
At a recent New York City dinner for her most prolific fundraisers, Clinton laid out a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees: they must vow to overturn the 2010 decision in Citizens United, which found that some campaign finance restrictions violated the First Amendment. Clinton also advocated a constitutional amendment to cement those campaign finance restrictions in place.
So much has been said about Citizens United, and “corporate money” in politics that it’s easy to forget what the case was actually about. With Hillary attacking the ruling, it’s crucial to recall the details.
Citizens United is a conservative non-profit activist group. In 2007 it produced a video called Hillary: The Movie, which laid out a series of criticisms of the woman who, at the time, was the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination.
Under the 2001 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, this documentary was illegal. Because it mentioned Hillary by name, it constituted an “electioneering communication” under that law, because the publishers of the film, Citizens United, is a non-profit organization — not merely an individual.
Finally, because Hillary: The Movie could be viewed and shown within 30 days of the New Hampshire primary, it was banned.
Does that sound like something a free country that values free speech would do? Ban a documentary film that criticizes the front-runner for president?
But it gets worse.
When the Obama administration defended the law before the Supreme Court in 2009, Justice Alito asked: “The government’s position is that the First Amendment allows the banning of a book if it’s published by a corporation?”
Obama’s Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said yes — “If the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy.” That means a book containing “the functional equivalent” of don’t vote for Hillary could be banned under pre-Citizens United campaign finance laws, under this view.
Hillary wants to return to this legal world.
Not only would such campaign finance laws make it harder for groups to criticize her — they could do so only through political action committees, which have strict rules and limits on fundraising — such laws would also make it harder for SuperPACs to spend on behalf of candidates, thus making candidates more reliant on thousands of $2,700 donations. That in turn makes candidates reliant on hundreds of well-connected bundlers — such as the audience at Hillary’s recent New York dinner.
This would be great news for Hillary, who possesses a broad fundraising network that benefits from her husband’s presidency and her subsequent 16 years in public office. But it would also tilt the playing field in the direction of multimillionaires, like Hillary, who can fund their own campaigns.
Millionaires have always stood to benefit from restrictions on donors — a bitter irony for “reformers.” And it applies doubly in this case. When Hillary spends some portion of her wealth on her campaign, she is spending the money given to her and her husband, often for an hour-long speech, by corporations and foreign governments who have and expect to have business matters that depend on favorable policy from Senator, Secretary, or a potential President Clinton.
In other words: Goldman Sachs, the Carlyle Group, the National Auto Dealers Association, Corning, Fidelity, KKR, Russian financial firm Renaissance Capital, eBay, and Ericsson have all made six-figure contributions to Hillary’s campaign in the form of speaking fees.
Corporate and foreign contributions to campaigns are illegal, but Hillary has found a way around that restriction — unless you think this career politician’s insights were really worth ten thousand dollars a minute.
Hillary, in other words, can legally fund her campaign through the most corrupt quid-pro-quo style America has seen in decades. But it won’t be worth the cost unless she can outlaw other, less corrupt ways of funding political campaigns.
This is not hypocrisy. Under Hillary’s plan, every candidate is free to launder six-figure checks from Russian banks through his or her personal bank account. Rather, it’s another example of something often seen in the business world. Regulation often serves to protect insiders from competition.
When it comes to political debate, the competition of ideas, and criticism of politicians’ records, Hillary needs all the protection she can get.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Sunday and Wednesday on washingtonexaminer.com.
