Can We All Be "Citizens United" Against The Bullshit?

"Money is the root of all evil," everyone has heard that one before. Most people will agree with it to a certain extent.  Money can bring power, and power can corrupt even the most well intentioned man.  We trust our country to be run by representatives that we "elect" and "choose", but how do these representatives get on the ballots to begin with.  It takes a lot of money to run a campaign, and somebody has to pay the bill.  Political campaign contribution rules changed dramatically in 2010 with the Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission case the opening of the floodgates for unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns.  And in the 2012 election cycle we saw that the Super PACS had a major impact.

Well it looks like the Supreme Court will have another chance to effect the world of politics next week in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission case. If you don't know what the case is about, let me sum it up for you:

If you ask Richard L. Hasen of UC Irvine, the McCutcheon case could be good for politics.  In his opinion piece in The Washington Post, he says that removing the limits of personal campaign contributions will streamline the route from donor to politician, and remove the nasty middleman(Super PACS). Mr. Hasen feels that the contribution limits, which have been in place since the Watergate Scandal, forced the individuals to donate instead to PACs, and not the candidate directly. This in a sense gave the power to the PACs and not the individual donor.  Mr. Hasen also goes on to say the he is "troubled by the prospect of an awful decision that would clear the way for more corruption. But I find some solace in the thought that such a ruling could have a surprising positive side effect: reducing gridlock in Washington."

Well Thank you for that, sir, I did need a good laugh. We can excuse the corruption, because at least those that have been corrupted are more efficient at doing it.  I'm not sure if this opinion was written tongue-and-cheek, for I do not know Mr. Hasen and his sense of humor.  I did however do a tiny bit of research on other writings or opinions Mr. Hasen has published.  I found an article written just a few months ago where he contradicts himself.  In a piece published in the New York Times titled, "Limits to Candidates Deter Corruption", Mr. Hasen clearly disagrees with himself.  In the piece, written in October of 2013 he says, "limiting direct contributions to candidates does serve the key public interest in deterring corruption of candidates." Ok, but it makes them more efficient, so it's not that bad, right? And then he says, "The closer the money comes to the hands of members of Congress, the greater the danger of corruption and undue influence of big donors."

Moral of the story, I don't think Mr. Hasen knows what to think.  He is clearly a well respected member of the political science community, he published a book, which means he can complete a task, and he seems to like to write opinion pieces, which means he has passion, and I too have passion.  But I normally can stick to an opinion for more than 6 months.  So in my opinion, if you want an opinion on the McCutcheon case, look elsewhere.