Outside Money, Iowa, and Politics

The recent election in Coralville  has me thinking.  Anytime Iowa makes the news and it is not related to a Presidential campaign, it could go either way whether that is a good or a bad thing.  Coralville had the dubious honor of getting into the sights of the billionaire Koch brother funded Americans for Prosperity group (which is not aptly named--we are all for prosperity--they just seem to be focused on maintaining prosperity for those who already have it rather than spreading the wealth).  They took umbrage with the recovery plan that the town had taken after the devestating 2008 flooding, which has been ambitious and incurred a large debt.  Rather than attempt to educate the populace on the implications of such a plan, in a balanced, potential risks and benefits approach, they chose to target the incumbents that were up for re-election.  Does money buy votes?  Not this year, at least not in Coralville, where all three were easily re-electd to office, but not before the voting public was riled up.  There was a great turn out for the election, and that is a plus, but over all, how to fight back against this trend?

The first step is to accept what you cannot control.  There has always been and there will always be outside money wrapped around Iowa politics.  That's not new and it is not news.  What has changed since the Citizen's United decision is there is more money, and more focus on smaller issues and smaller communities.  One way to fight back to to take to the streets--they went door to door, we can go door to door.  When another of the judges on the 2007 Iowa Supreme Court that made a ruling that allowed for legal same sex marriage in Iowa was targeted, the Iowa Bar Association sent lawyers on buses across Iowa to explain why the judge was indeed qualifed to be a judge, and why there was a necesarry seperation between the judiciary and the legislature. 

Another positive trend coming out of the Coralville election could be stronger campaign disclosure laws.  After what happened recently in California, I would say it could be an effective way to know who is spending what where.  Last year the California Fair Political Practices Commission suspected that millions in contributions were given to two right-wing political campaigns by donors who obscured their identity. After a year-long investigation, the state imposed $16 million in penalties and fines on the groups, a record in a campaign finance case. Though it’s not clear how much of those penalties will ever be collected, or even who many of the original donors were, the effort demonstrates the importance of state disclosure laws and aggressive enforcement, particularly since Congress has refused to pay attention to abuses on a national level. I believe the California commission has done the political world a favor by exposing the secretive network of conservative groups that have aggressively taken advantage of the unlimited donations allowed by the Supreme Court, as well as the ability to hide donors that is permitted by the Federal Election Commission and lower courts.  So let's get that kind of passion for discovery and accountability in Iowa!