Rolling Out a Carpet of Cash

Common Cause Statement on Congressional Deal Quadrupling Contribution Limits for Political Conventions

“The deal apparently struck today by Democratic and Republican leaders to quadruple the maximum contribution for support of national political conventions is an affront to the millions of Americans whose votes last month signaled their desire for change in Washington. Although a different party will be in the majority in the Senate for the 114^th Congress, it’s clear that the real power will remain with big money interests. This agreement simply ends the current Congress by rolling out a carpet of cash for the next one.

“Under this arrangement, a senator or congressperson will be permitted to solicit more than $259,000 from a single donor for his or her party in each two-year election cycle. Does anyone believe that the people providing such donations will neither expect nor receive something in return? Of course not.

“These changes take us another step back toward the pre-Watergate era, when political money was essentially unregulated and the nation endured a wave of corruption unlike any in our history. Unbridled political spending is even more dangerous now because the economic gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us is so large that a relative handful of big money donors can use their resources to drown out everyone else.”