AP Photo In The Arena How Money Poisons Our Politics Our democracy is starting to look a lot like oligarchy.

Jon Huntsman is a former U.S. Ambassador to China and Republican governor of Utah, and ran for president in 2012. He is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One, a nonprofit organization dedicated to campaign finance reform. Tim Roemer is a former U.S. Ambassador to India, Democratic member of Congress from Indiana and member of the 9/11 Commission. He is also a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

The fact that 158 families have provided nearly half of all the campaign cash raised so far this presidential cycle is yet more evidence of the insidious influence of money on our political system. Presidential election spending has doubled since 2000, and some experts predict next year’s contest may cost up to an astounding $10 billion. Politicians spend more than 50 percent of their time raising money, primarily from wealthy individuals or from lobbyists who represent the industries they are supposed to oversee. Special interests spend more money lobbying Congress than taxpayers spend funding Congress.

Republicans have a tremendous opportunity at Wednesday’s presidential debate to finally give voice to the emerging bipartisan consensus that all of this money is threatening the ability of our government to properly represent the American people. We speak from combined experience based on years campaigning for presidential, congressional and gubernatorial office, and know firsthand the sad truth. Most hours of a candidate’s day are spent in a perpetual money chase, begging high rollers for funding instead of focusing on our nation’s future. Yet, for reasons beyond our comprehension, this topic has received little to no mention in any of the presidential debates, and few of the candidates from either party have used these high-visibility events to put forward tangible solutions.


As former ambassadors to China and India, we know that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Al Qaeda present menacing national security risks. We know the challenges of navigating our global economy. We believe these topics should be debated at length. But the lack of discussion surrounding money in politics is concerning, particularly given a recent Chapman University study which found that more Americans fear corruption of government officials than anything else, including bioterrorism and economic collapse.

Those fears aren’t unfounded, either. The growing dominance of secret money and special-interest influence warps public policy toward the moneyed elite and puts representative democracy out of the reach of voters. How do we know? A groundbreaking 2013 study by two political scientists, Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern, puts this phenomenon in stark terms: “When Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor- or middle-income Americans.”

In other words, our vaunted democratic tradition is starting to look a lot like oligarchy.

With little ability to get their voices heard above the din of all that cash, the American people’s trust-deficit is at an all-time high. The result is a level of political dysfunction matched only by the public’s cynicism with the process. So it’s no wonder that a September 2015 Gallup poll found that 75 percent of this country thinks the federal government is corrupt.

This is one problem with plenty of bipartisan agreement. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 72 percent of Americans believe politicians cannot be trusted. More than half of Democrats and a third of Republicans think the country’s political system is fundamentally broken. How can we possibly solve our nation’s greatest challenges when our citizens have so little faith in government’s ability to function at the most basic levels?

That’s the question Republican candidates need to have an answer for, whether the debate moderators ask or not. But here are some of our suggestions for how to solve this problem.

The most critical step for restoring Americans’ trust in our political system is strengthening the power of small donors by implementing citizen funding of campaigns at the state and national levels. Right now, less than one quarter of 1 percent of Americans contribute more than $200 to federal campaigns. Most citizens either cannot afford or choose not to financially support their preferred candidates, and those who can hold tremendous power over who gets elected and what those people focus on once in office. Americans of both parties, liberal and conservative, enthusiastically support reforms to help smaller donors play a bigger role in our politics.

New York City has accomplished this goal through a matching funds system. In exchange for agreeing to certain common-sense rules like spending limits and greater oversight, participating candidates earn a 6-to-1 match for low-dollar contributions. In Connecticut, after demonstrating sufficient support, campaigns receive full funding from a flat grant provided by the state’s innovative clean elections program. Said one winning candidate in 2013, “I announced my reelection bid in February and by April, I was done fundraising. So, from April to November, I could focus only on talking to constituents. Without public financing, I would have been fundraising through that entire period.”

Other states and municipalities offer tax incentives to donors, but the model is essentially the same. These systems allow politicians to raise the money they need to run their campaigns while still retaining fealty to their constituents instead of big donors. It’s the single best way to democratize the funding of campaigns and must be the basis of any serious reform platform.

One point on which many of the candidates on Wednesday’s stage agree: Everyone has a right to know who’s spending to influence elections. It’s an important consensus, given the explosion of independent expenditures from nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors. That’s why Republicans and Democrats in Montana united to ban dark money by requiring all groups spending in state politics to make their donors public, regardless of tax status.

South Carolinians curbed special interest influence by banning registered lobbyists from donating to politicians. And in Washington, advocates continue to push for an executive order to disclose political expenditures by contractors that receive our tax dollars. All of these are simple ideas with the potential to dramatically rebalance the scales of power back toward Main Street, where it belongs. This much is clear: Our escalating democratic crisis continues not for lack of solutions, but lack of political will.

In a recent New York Times/ABC News poll, 85 percent of respondents, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents, said they want to see our campaign-finance system fundamentally changed or completely overhauled. The American people have a burning desire to reclaim our grand experiment in self-governance. They want answers. So again, we wonder, why haven’t the debate moderators asked the questions?

If the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it exists, then we are well on our way. Republican candidates have, again and again, denounced lobbyists and decried big spending outside groups on the campaign trail. However, the debates are an opportunity to not just harp on what’s broken, but also to offer articulated policies that will ensure all citizens feel represented by their government. For anyone seeking the highest office in the land, explaining that vision is perhaps his or her most critical task. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.

