Mulvaney’s “Pay To Play” Admission Exposes Washington’s Seedy Underbelly
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | APRIL 26, 2018
“With his remarks, Mulvaney arrogantly demonstrated the seedy underbelly of the corrupt campaign finance system that pervades Washington today.”
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget and a former South Carolina Representative, revealed this week that he had been a classic pay-to-play Congressman. In order to obtain a meeting with Mulvaney, a lobbyist had to make a campaign contribution.
In other words, Mulvaney sold access to his office for a fee. We have no idea what his pay-for-play fees might be today as Trump’s OMB Director.
With his remarks, Mulvaney arrogantly demonstrated the seedy underbelly of the corrupt campaign finance system that pervades Washington today.
In the 1970s, the Watergate scandals led to the Federal Election Campaign Act. In the 1990s, the soft money scandals led to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. In the 2000s, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandals led to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.
In the next few years, the persistent scandals of the Trump administration will lead to the enactment of major democracy reforms.
The stage is being set for this right now.
In the Senate, the comprehensive We The People Democracy Reform Act of 2017, sponsored by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), contains essential reforms to address campaign finance, voting, partisan redistricting, and ethics problems. A companion House bill is sponsored by Representative David Price (D-NC).
In the House, the Democracy Reform Task Force, chaired by Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD), is putting together its own comprehensive democracy reform package, which they intend to take to the country during this midterm election season and can be moved on quickly in 2019 if Democrats win control of the House in November.
On the outside, Democracy 21 is working with other organizations to build an expanded national coalition and army of grassroots activists to promote a democracy reform agenda.
We must be ready to seize the moment when the opportunity comes to repair our dangerously damaged political system.
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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.
