After the last presidential debate on Oct. 15, many democratic voters are pointing to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as the new frontrunner. She scored the most speaking time and swiftly responded to attacks from those with whom she shared the stage.
Warren discussed her plans to finance Medicare for All and her opinions on a wealth tax; she commented on the current impeachment inquiry and Social Security benefit issues. While she freely discussed all of this policy on national television, she unveiled a plan one day later that aims to limit free speech in the American political arena.
Specifically, Warren hopes to levy a tax against “excessive lobbying” if elected.
Under this law, organizations are taxed 35 percent on lobbying expenditures if they spend over $500,000 on lobbying efforts. If organizations spend more than $1 million, the rate increases to 60 percent. If spending exceeds $5 million, the rate tops at 75 percent. Expenditures are to be calculated on a quarterly basis, creating four annual opportunities for U.S. organizations to be taxed from $175,000 to more than $3,750,000.
Lobbying is the formal term for the practice of petitioning the government, an extension of free speech protected under the First Amendment.
Like individuals, organizations have needs from their government and have a desire to influence legislation to their benefit. Instead of holding up posters and walking down the street like a citizen might, they hire highly-qualified lobbyists.
Because most lobbyists are experts in a given policy field, they don’t come cheap. The average lobbying firm charges anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000 for full advocacy services each month. Clearly, outsourcing political influence is costly, but this is the manner through which organizations voice their concerns and petition their government.
And it is perfectly legal. The First Amendment provides the basis for all free speech.
Warren is proposing the tax in an effort to “strengthen congressional independence from lobbyists” and has understandably received considerable blowback. One of these voices is U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Neil Bradley.
Bradley was quick to condemn her plan and said on the same day she revealed it.
“Senator Warren wants to tax people because she doesn’t like them exercising their constitutional right to petition the government,” Bradley said. “I am sure lots of people would like to tax politicians who give too many speeches, but that isn’t constitutional either.”
The American public also took notice of the plan’s irony. In her 2012 and 2018 Senate campaigns, Warren took $95,000 from Federal Election Commission-registered lobbyists. Citizens are questioning why she is now penalizing an industry that she has benefited from in the past.
Not only has she benefited from lobbyist funding in past races, but members of her party are currently utilizing money from these sources. To name a few, Montana Governor Steve Bullock, also in the race for the Oval Office, has accepted more than $4,000 from foreign lobbyists since his campaign took off and, Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, received and used $1,000 from a lobbyist for Kosovo’s ministry of foreign affairs.
If Warren’s proposal is made a reality, she will be hurting the campaign spending ability of members of her own party, possibly forfeiting seats at various levels of government. More importantly, the senator is limiting the constitutionally-granted right of free speech and petition. Her law, if passed, has scant chances of holding up in court— see Citizens United v. FEC.
If a court somehow deems the plan constitutionally coherent, she will be seriously injuring the industry that serves as yet another vessel of free speech for organizations, causes and individuals that do not have access to higher-level elected officials.
A democracy is, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Citizens have the right to use their voices — through intermediaries in this case — to create a government responsive to the public’s will; perhaps Warren’s proposal would have more success outside a democracy.
The biggest problem with this criticism is that it implies that lobbying influence is accessible to everyone and limitless. The primary reason that a lobbying tax is a good idea is that, right now, the only “interests” that gain access to government attentions are the ones that spend the most money. All other citizens’ groups and social organizations are swept aside and given little attention, even when they are more representative of the public. It is incredibly ironic that this op-ed attacks a proposed institutional limit on monetary influence in government while arguing that government should be representative of the people, as if it were collective social groups and citizen movements that were spending over $500,000 on lobbying and not massive corporations that twist the government to serve their own private interests. If democracy were really for the people, the people would be the ones who have the biggest voice and hold politicians most accountable, but they don’t, and this article is mostly an elaborate justification for the wrongful FEC v. Citizens United argument that “money is speech”. Corporations are NOT individuals.