Franken, Senate committee tackle campaign reform in wake of Citizens United

Would public campaign financing help make Washington less corrupt? That was Wednesday’s topic at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee as the committee debated the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create a system where candidates can volunteer to get matching federal funds for small donations received from constituents. Sen. Al Franken, a member of the committee, grilled the only testifier that spoke against the bill.

The hearing, titled “The Fair Elections Now Act: A Comprehensive Response to Citizens United,” focused on the negative effects of special interest money in campaigns and the impacts of independent expenditures in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.

Cleta Mitchell of the American Conservative Union, the National Rifle Association and the Republican Lawyers Association said that there’s nothing wrong with the current system.

“Corporations have First Amendment rights,” she argued. “There is a real body of law going back a century that corporations have personhood rights.”

Of the public financing of elections, Mitchell said that most Americans do not contribute to the only public financing mechanism currently in place, the Presidential Public Funding Program, which taxpayers can contribute to by checking a box on their tax forms.

“This bill is not needed. It’s an anachronism. It is an idea whose [sic] time has come and gone,” she said.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming, disagreed.

On Citizens United, he said, “I think the Republicans are thrilled with this present system and think they got a good deal. Wait until the unions get in on this baby.”

Simpson slammed the current system of special interest money in campaigns.

“The American people think you are on the take, or if [Congress members] weren’t they would get something done,” he said. “They can’t because here’s comes old slick, who’s maxed out on your contributions limit, taken you out to dinner, got your staff plastered on the best wine… It stinks. It smells bad.”

“I was struck by a number of things that you found amusing,” Franken said to Mitchell. “And in my old business when anybody who found anything amusing, that was good. And you are easily amused.”

Franken talked about a myth that Mitchell mentioned, the myth that “the public would be upset to know how much time senators have to spend raising money.”

Mitchell said, “There’s nothing wrong with senators having to go out an mix among the people.”

“There’s a difference between mixing among people — going to town meetings, going to floods, like I did this week, and talking to community groups — and doing fund-raising. You know that, right?” asked Franken.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with [fundraising]. I think it’s un-American to suggest otherwise,” Mitchell said.

“I’m sorry,” the former comedian said generating audience laughter. “I didn’t think I was unAmerican. And I didn’t think Alan Simpson was either.”

Franken asked former Simpson whether fundraising was the same as going out into the community and meeting with constituents.

Simpson led with a bit of a dig at Franken. “You and I did a few schticks together. I don’t know why I ever appeared on your program, Lateline. It was the goofiest thing I ever enjoyed.”

To Franken’s question Simpson said, “All I know is about me. I felt used when I had to go raise money, I felt embarrassed.”

He added, “I thought it was ugly, I thought it was demeaning… You have to dial numbers of jerks you’ve never heard of in your life to get money.”

Franken also mentioned that under the current system with the Citizens United ruling, corporations can simply funnel money to other entities without ever disclosing the expenditure, and that that isn’t fair to the shareholders.

Monica Youn of the Brennan Center’s Campaign Finance Project agreed. “The best example comes from your home state of Minnesota with the Target example where Target spent $150,000 of shareholder money in support of a candidate [Tom Emmer] whose views many of the shareholders of Target simply didn’t agree with.”

Franken added, “And that was only because Minnesota had a disclosure law, and [the federal government] doesn’t have a disclosure law.”

Youn added that in her research only about a third of the funds spent on independent expenditures actually gets disclosed.

And while Minnesota law is stronger than the federal laws on disclosure, conservative groups in the state are attempting to overturn those rules.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and several other conservative groups are suing to strike down Minnesota campaign finance laws that require independent expenditures to be disclosed, the same disclosure that led to shareholders’ knowing about Target’s donation last fall to Minnesota’s Future who spent the funds in support of Tom Emmer.

The hearing was informational only, and the committee adjourned without taking a vote.