Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision vacating the federal bribery conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell. The Court’s ruling narrowed the scope of federal bribery laws and required clearer jury instructions on the kinds of “official acts” that can be prosecuted when officeholders accept personal gifts from private individuals. In response, Brenda Wright, Vice President of Policy and Legal Strategies at Demos, issued the following statement:
D.C. politicians are funded by donors who are whiter and wealthier than the constituents they serve, an analysis by the liberal think tank Demos found.[...]
While it comes as no surprise that wealthy people are more inclined to spend on political races, the Demos analysis is the first comprehensive look at the demographics of District campaign contributors in recent years. Analysts matched campaign donors to a voter database used by Democrats that includes race, gender and income.[...]
The D.C. donor class doesn’t represent the diversity of Washington D.C.’s population, a new Demos report finds. In Washington D.C.’s 2014 mayoral election, large donors (those who gave more than $1,000) accounted for 67 percent of all money raised by the three candidates in 2014.
The biggest political donors aren’t just wealthier than the median voter. A study from the think tank Demos suggests they also tend to be disproportionately white, male and right-wing.
The 2016 presidential election is dominated by big money – with close to half of all Super PAC money coming from just 50 donors. When wealthy, white donors set the agenda each election season, whose voices are left unheard?
The Brennan Center for Justice, Demos and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights invite you to engage in a thought-provoking and timely discussion about how the outsized influence of big money in politics may be a 21st Century civil rights issue and what we can do about it.
About 94% of donors to Emanuel's campaign were white, even though white people comprise just 39% of Chicago's total population, according to the new report, from progressive think tank Demos. Emanuel's donors almost entirely (84%) gave large contributions of $1,000 or more. A staggering 80% of his donors had an annual income of at least $100,000 or more, despite just 15% of Chicagoans making six figures.
A newly released report provides the first-ever comprehensive study of how municipal level elections and policymaking are dominated by big donors. How Chicago’s White Donor Class Distorts City Policy shows that in the 2015 Chicago mayoral election, candidates raised more than 90 percent of their funds from donors giving over $1,000.
However, money still matters a lot, and it probably matters more on the local and state level than it does nationally. As McElwee notes, the donor class has sharply different ideological beliefs than the public at large. For obvious reasons, they tend to resist the tax increases necessary to pay for better services, and tend to support "centrist" austerity derp like the Bowles-Simpson program. In other words, they're more conservative.
In a nutshell: Rahm Emanuel relied overwhelming on large donations from a very nearly exclusively white pool of donors — who also, as further analysis shows, largely live in the same few rich wards of the city (save for non-Chicagoans, as Emanuel also did a lot of fundraising outside the city). Even Garcia's donors were disproportionately white, though to a much lesser extent. "We expected going in there would be some demographic disparities," McElwee told The Week.
When Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ran for re-election in 2015, his opponents accused him of representing the elite in a city starkly divided by race and class. A new analysis of campaign finance data shows that, at least from a fundraising perspective, the mayor’s support did indeed come largely from a narrow band of Chicago’s citizens.
In a recent report, Demos and the Public Interest Research Group showed how many viable candidates, including many candidates of color, struggle to compete against better-funded incumbents.
“Super PACs likely encouraged more candidates to get into the 2016 GOP presidential race,” said Jay Goodliffe, a political science professor at Brigham Young University. “Even if their polls were not initially good, or there were other setbacks, the super PAC could help keep them afloat.”
The idea of a property-owning democracy has long roots in American political thought. In their book, The Citizen's Share, Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman and Douglas Kruse argue that the Founding Fathers wanted everyone (well, everyone who was white and male) to own a small slice of property. Both Madison and Washington praised the relatively equal distribution of property in the United States (compared with Europe). Thomas Jefferson wrote, "It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible be without a little portion of land.
The 2016 presidential election will be the second since the court's disastrous Citizens United decision and the first without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act in place. That means big donors will have more sway over elected officials to dictate the agenda.
When Bartels compared the policy preferences of the rich and poor to actual policy results (with controls) his results were disturbing. He finds that low-income preferences had virtually no effect on policy outcomes.
The explosion of “dark money” spent in the political system in the United States threatens racial equity in the United States making it harder for Blacks and other minorities to gain a foothold in the middle class and fully participate in the democracy, according to a recent report by Demos, a public policy group.
Demos Vice President of Policy and Legal Strategies Brenda Wright released the following statement:
"Tonight, in his last State of the Union, President Obama lifted up the importance of fixing our politics so that all voices can be heard in our democracy.
"He noted how too many people feel that 'the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.' To live up to our democratic tenets, President Obama called for reducing the influence of money in politics and modernizing our elect