CRACKING
THE CODE
tisan leadership and support,
because someone has always got
41 votes out there, unless some
things change,” Wertheimer said,
noting the number of votes needed to maintain a Senate filibuster.
Wertheimer worries that the
Sarbanes bill’s low matching fund
threshold would not prove attractive to Republicans and would
not provide enough money for
candidates looking to compete in
elections that feature super PACs
lurking around the corner.
Time is also a concern for
groups seeking to reform the system. Big membership groups now
engaged on the issue envision a
10-year plan to organize support
for a reform bill, and new groups
focused on building a movement
similarly take a long view.
Lessig believes, however, that
reformers need to strike while
Americans are still outraged by the
Citizens United decision and before
they accept the new levels of spending and sink into cynicism.
“This 10-year movement, I guess,
I don’t buy it,” he said. “And I don’t
buy it because I think it’s got the
physics of reform wrong.” Lessig
advocates finding the “Saturn V
equivalent” to blast the reform effort “into orbit.”
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Reform veterans point out that
there will never be a final fix for
campaign fundraising. “Nobody
ever says, ‘Pass one tax bill and
you’re done,’” McGehee said. “Why
should there be one campaign finance bill and then you’re done? So
it’s kind of this constant struggle.”
The new reformers are not blind
to the challenges of passing cam-
BY BEING TIED TO A LARGE
POOL OF FUNDS, SMALL
DONORS BECOME AS
VALUABLE AS BIG ONES.
paign finance legislation, particularly given the current partisan divide in Congress. But they still want
to think big and bold.
“I’m not naive on that point,
but what’s the alternative to trying to press for something different
here?” Sarbanes asked. “You can’t
keep a democracy going in a functional and constructive way if only
10 percent of the people you represent think your institution is functioning in an acceptable
way. That’s just not viable.”
Paul Blumenthal is a reporter for The
Huffington Post covering money and
influence in politics.