We the people need to say no to big money

“Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money just to lose.” Will Rogers said that. He died in 1935. He could have had no idea how high a price politicians would be willing to pay for votes.

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” An English historian, Lord John Acton said so. He died in 1902, long before he had any notion about how absolutely big money would corrupt politics.

Donald Trump admitted to absolute corruption through his ability to bankroll politicians. “I will tell you,” Trump said in 2016, “our system is broken.” Trump said he did what Jesus asked in Luke 6:30, give to everybody who asks. “I give to everybody,” Trump boasted, “When I need something from them, two years, three years later, I call. They are always there for me.”

Alas, Wyoming is not exempt. Money has swamped our elections. It wasn’t always that way. There was a time when big money didn’t matter in Wyoming. That has changed.

In the Republican primary, Foster Friess spent 2.7 million dollars to buy 29,842 votes. That’s ninety dollars per vote. What does a candidate do with that much money? That is what it took for Friess to purchase the runner-up position while subjecting voters to countless, annoying robocalls and a constant stream of television commercials. The money also bought a misleading, last-minute poll, used to argue that he, not Mark Gordon, was winning.

Sam Galeotos dropped 2.1 million dollars, $144 per vote, for a fourth-place finish. Third place went to Harriett Hageman. Her 25,052 votes cost about a million uncompetitive dollars, or $40 per vote.

The winner was Mark Gordon. Not counting the money spent on his behalf by the so-called “Independent Republicans of Wyoming,” Mr. Gordon spent around two million dollars, better than 50 dollars per vote to secure the nomination.  

John Barrasso spent 3.9 million dollars to keep his Senate seat. In the primary, he received 74,292 votes. Each cost his campaign a little better than $52. Despite his enormous personal wealth, Barrasso’s opponent Dave Dodson was only willing to spend $42 per vote in a losing cause.

In the recent gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidates spent a total of about 8 million dollars. The combined vote received by the six contenders was 116,673. On average, they paid more than $68 per vote.

The Democratic Party’s nominees were pikers compared to their GOP counterparts. The Democrats were funded at pre-1990 levels. Mary Throne, now running against Mark Gordon for the Governorship, spent a meager $112,298.12. Her 12,948 votes came at the bargain investment of $8.67 each. Barrasso’s opponent in the general election is Gary Trauner. Mr. Trauner’s 17,562 votes came at a cost of $366,798, or about $21 each. 

Dear voters, problems accompany the ability of one party’s candidates to outspend their opponents by such a wide margin. That kind of disparity means the better funded candidate doesn’t need to knock on doors, hold townhall meetings, debate opponents, or get down into the grassroots. Lesser funded candidates spend their money on shoe leather and gasoline to travel Wyoming’s 33,000 miles of roads. Exorbitantly funded candidates can, instead, buy negative commercials to run every time there is a break in a program.

When a candidate has so much more money than an opponent, that candidate can afford to hire outside consultants who arrange it so your telephone rings off the hook with robocalls and phony push polls designed to provide voters with false and misleading information about an opponent.

Then there are quid pro quos. Like Trump, the contributors dropping big money are like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart.” They never let candidates forget what they compromised when they took the money.

We the people allow that behavior though most say they’d like big money removed from politics. Don’t countenance those who have amassed large war chests by making political commitments to big-money special interests. This year, reward those who don’t have access to dark money and wealthy contributors.

E pluribus unum had a good run, but...

“E pluribus unum” is out. “Id quod circumiret, circumveniat” is in.

E pluribus unum was the motto of the United States of America from 1776. Though it continues to appear on a banner in an eagle’s beak on our currency, its official status was abandoned by Congress in 1956, replaced by “In God We Trust.”

The Latin phrase, comprised coincidentally of 13 letters, was chosen by the founders to recognize a unified nation had been created of 13 colonies, i.e. out of many, came one.” Cicero used the term 44 years before the birth of Christ to define the bonds of family and successful societies. “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many,” said the Roman statesman.

For 180 years e pluribus unum served as our national identity. During those years, the U.S. became the world’s most powerful nation, unified in many peoples, interests, races, cultures, and religions, founded in the words of the Constitution.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

E pluribus unum had a good run. Under the motto, our nation refused to be divided by civil war, heeding Lincoln’s warning. A “house divided against itself cannot stand.” A belief in unity allowed us to avoid ruination during economic catastrophes like the Great Depression. As a unified people, we met the threats of two World Wars.

Each succeeding generation found its way to secure and expand the blessings of liberty. Those excluded from full participation in the life of the country at the start were gradually given that right; Native Americans given citizenship, women allowed to vote, and slowly but inevitably, the rights of racial minorities received the protections of law.

Immigrants were welcomed. They came by the millions, putting their stamp on the successes of the U.S. over decades. School children were taught their country was a melting pot. All were welcomed under the banner “e pluribus unum.”

Ironically, it all began to change when, in 1956, Congress changed the motto to “In God We Trust.” Soon after the change, the national consensus began to unravel. Americans could understand that from many could come unity, but they never figured out which God to trust. Many thought it was an opportunity to impose their God on others.

It wasn’t long before some Christians had to be told by the Supreme Court they could not establish their God as the only one to trust by imposing Christian prayers on school children. That was 1962. They’re still whining about it.

Then came the Civil Rights Act of 1964, raising concern among many whites that there were only so many blessings of liberty to go around. Then Roe v. Wade determined that one’s understanding of God could not be used as a pretext for making reproductive choices for all women. The longest running religious war in history was underway and continues yet today.

The God some trusted said, “Treat the foreigner as native born.” Others, claiming to trust the same God suggested God was winking when God said that. Immigrants who helped make us one, were hunted down and deported, their children placed in detention camps. Some didn’t trust any God who said, “Love thy neighbor,” because that required tolerating gays and lesbians.

Attempts to impose one’s God on others proved more than a little divisive. In that political environment someone could become a Supreme Court justice after warning the country, “Id quod circumiret, circumveniat,” meaning “what goes around, comes around.”   

“Id quod circumiret, circumveniat” has become the nation’s de facto motto, the way in which our government, with the consent of the voters, now does business, proving Lincoln right. A nation divided against itself cannot stand. It’s only a matter of time.

Yes, politics belong in the pulpit

At the invitation of Pete Simpson, I spoke at a town hall meeting recently in Cody. The topic was religion and politics. Pete’s grandmother believed the two didn’t mix. Politics and religion were to be avoided at her dinner table. What about the pulpit? Do political discussions belong in church?

As a way of understanding the issue, Pete recommended the assembled citizens read Jon Meacham’s 2006 book entitled “American Gospel.” The book chronicles the development of the first clause of the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The drafters can be quoted saying many things, but the language they placed into the Constitution did not bar politics from the pulpit. The U.S. tax code, however, does place limitations on political speech and activities in which a church may engage.

A church cannot endorse candidates or parties or contribute financially to them. Nothing in the code prevents faith communities from speaking about political issues. Churches may even lobby their elected officials so long as that sort of witness does not consume a substantial portion of their time or resources.

That is called free speech, also protected by the 1^st Amendment. It is likewise what the Founders called “the free exercise” of religion.

In the Presbyterian tradition, as with many others, bearing such witness is an expectation of members. Faithful membership is defined to include an expectation that Presbyterians work to secure certain inalienable rights to “peace, justice, freedom, and human fulfillment.”

Meacham’s history details the struggle of the new country to figure out the question of religion. The struggle leading to the writing of the Constitution is not unlike that which continues yet today.

Twenty-first century Americans have as much trouble agreeing how or whether to separate church from state as did those of the 18^th century who wrote the Bill of Rights. Meacham believes it would be useful to understand that, in the United States, there is both a “public religion” and a “private religion.”

Our public religion is built around a nearly-common understanding that there is a God who, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, created all of us to be equals of one another, a “Creator” who endowed us with “certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jefferson and others among the founders thought that applied regardless of how individual citizens practice what he called “private religion, which is practiced in the personal choices we are entitled to make about the path we choose to finding that whom we understand to be the Divine.

Meacham concludes the founders “wanted God in American public life” but saw wisdom in “distinguishing between private and public religion.” Thus, no official state religion, no teacher-led prayers in public schools, no tax-free dollars supporting church-endorsed candidates. It also means we can judge elected officials by what they do for the least of these.

The wall between church and state was never built to separate religious from political speech. The obligation of faith leaders to speak on matters of justice is established by scripture. The Old Testament devotes entire books to the political speech of the Hebrew prophets. They risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to challenge abuses of the government just as did the founders of our nation.

Theologian Robin Meyers’ book “Saving Jesus From the Church,” imagines a gathering of folks far more like those who don’t attend church today than those who do. They have never heard the creeds and church doctrine. One has a “pocket version” of the Sermon on the Mount. She starts reading. Everything changes. The gathered are motivated. The politicians are nervous. Such a meeting, he surmised, would be important while being dangerous. So, it should be with the church.

Far be it for me to disagree with Grandma Simpson, but politics belong at the dinner table, in the pulpit, and anywhere else thoughtful people gather.