Martin DyckmanAmidst the national obsession over whether a hugely overpaid athlete is returning to a city he once deserted, something immensely more important happened in Washington Thursday.
Scarcely anyone noticed.
You most likely did not see it in your newspaper or hear it on TV. It was reported by the “Voice of Russia” but not by the New York Times.
I’m speaking of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote for a constitutional amendment enabling Congress and the states to set reasonable limits on campaign contributions and spending.
That was the good news. The survival of our democracy, in my opinion, depends on that amendment.
The bad news was that it was a party-line vote: Ten Democrats for, eight Republicans against.
That means — as everyone knew going in — that there won’t be the two-thirds vote, even in the Senate, that’s necessary to adopt a constitutional amendment.
The Republicans may even block it from the floor. And absolutely nothing will happen in the House.
For now, that is.
Looking only at the short term, most of the Washington press corps figured, “What’s the use?”
The Associated Press did report the event — the article was laden with pessimism — but Fox News seems to be the only media that picked it up.
Ever since the Supreme Court’s diabolical Citizens United decision four years ago, which magically imbued corporations with personhood and licensed them to buy up the government, newspapers throughout the country have bemoaned the death knell of our democracy.
They have written a lot about the billions of dollars being put to use to drown out what the founders really intended when they provided for freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
And when somebody finally undertakes to do something about it?
The media have the very bad habit of handicapping the news instead of simply reporting it.
Their news judgment turns on their perception of the outcome, the so-called horse race. If they figure a bill won’t pass, or a candidate can’t get elected, why waste ink and air time on it?
When former Florida Governor Reubin Askew ran for president in 1984, the media essentially wrote him off. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Askew had to drop out even before his own state’s primary.
The same thing is happening now to Nan Rich in the Florida governor’s race. The media is so certain that it will be Charlie Crist against Rick Scott in November that Rich, despite her very decent record in the Legislature, is scarcely being heard as to why she thinks she deserves the Democratic nomination more than Crist does.
The media’s indifference to the Judiciary Committee’s amendment is a tremendous disservice to the American people.
The issue is not whether the amendment will pass this year.
Of course it won’t.
The issue is whether it must pass eventually.
That is a decision the American people can influence with their votes.
But to cast them wisely, they need to know which candidates are for the amendment and why, and which oppose it and why.
Of these things you can be sure: the Koch brothers are already lobbying against it. Their clients, the Republicans, are already spinning webs of misinformation.
Sen. Ted Cruz, for one, said it would allow Congress to “ban books.”
People, that is a LIE. That’s spelled L-I-E.
Here is what the amendment says about that:
“Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.”
Its operative provisions enable Congress to regulate only the raising and spending of money in support of or opposition to federal candidates. Similar language deals with the states and state-level campaigns. The power is permissive; it does not guarantee that either Congress or the state legislatures would use it.
Again, public opinion would have to see to that.
But for there to be public opinion, the public needs to be informed.
Floridians should know, for example, that neither of their senators is among the 45 co-sponsors of Senate Joint Resolution 19.
You might not expect it of Marco Rubio, the Republican, but surely Democrat Bill Nelson ought to be on board. Unlike Rubio, he can remember when money didn’t rule the marketplace of political ideas, and when Florida was the better for that.
A spokesman said Nelson has “some concerns about prospects for success” but added that the senator probably will join up.
We’ll be watching.
Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg Times. He lives near Waynesville, North Carolina. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
