Cruz is wrong

Cruz is wrong on a solution to big money in U.S. politics

By David Donnelly

In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Texas senator and Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz offered an unusually candid assessment — for a lawmaker — of how policy gets made in Congress.

“Let me explain to you how it works,” he told the crowd at the conservative think tank. “A bill is set to come before Congress, and career politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder. Corrupt backroom deals result in one interest group getting preferences over the other, although you give the other a chance to outbid them. Or even worse, a very small interest group getting special carve-outs at the expense of taxpayers.”

It’s not a stretch to say that this is the norm for most policies: Too often, lobbyists and the big donors they represent get to write or influence laws at the expense of everyone else.

There’s no doubt that Cruz understands the symptom behind the problem. As he shared with a group of activists in New Hampshire in April, “I’ve told my 6-year-old daughter, ‘Running for office is real simple: You just surgically disconnect your shame sensor because you spend every day asking people for money.’”

This clear-eyed assessment — that money forces candidates to be money-seekers, not listeners or problem-solvers — makes it all the more confounding that his solution to our broken campaign-finance system would blow it up entirely.

Specifically, Cruz has called for repealing limits on what individuals can give to candidates and party committees — a proposal that would hand our elections wholly over to the wealthiest among us and bring the corrupting influence of money that is now going to outside groups right to the candidates’ campaigns themselves.

Cruz may be right about the problem, but he’s dead wrong about the solution.

We need to focus on increasing the participation and political power of the many, not allowing more money from an elite few. For the right solutions, Cruz should talk to his colleague, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about the Fair Elections Now Act.

The Fair Elections Now Act — and its House companion, the Government By the People Act — would add needed balance to our political system. These bills amplify the voices of everyday Americans by providing matching funds for small donations so, for example, a $40 donation from a school teacher or waitress becomes $240.

Through a blend of small-dollar contributions and public matching funds, candidates can run for office with the support of people back home, not Washington lobbyists and corporate interests.

It would give qualified people the freedom to run for office without feeling like they’re selling themselves to the highest bidder, and most important, would hand control of our elections to the voters.

These bills are modeled on successful small-donor systems in effect in cities and states across the country — including Connecticut, Maine and New York City, where hundreds of candidates have been able to run and win competitive people-powered campaigns.

Recent surveys by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have both found overwhelmingly that Americans are tired of the pay-to-play system Cruz talks about. They think Congress no longer works for them.

At the same time, they don’t think any politician will actually do anything about it.

There is a huge strategic opening for a candidate to take this cynicism head-on and engage Americans on solutions to the money-in-politics problem.

Presidential candidate Cruz will find that voters are receptive to this message about corruption.

But unless he offers a concrete plan that improves, not worsens, the current system, he will sound like yet another politician who isn’t serious about change.