When Wealth Controls The Agenda… Opportunity For Economic And Social Advancement Dries Up

This weekend's "must read" was Trip Gabriel's NY Times piece, 50 Years Into The War On Poverty, Hardship Hits Back. He writes that "much of McDowell County looks like a rural Detroit, with broken windows on shuttered businesses and homes crumbling from neglect." Ironically, "beginning in the 19th century, the rugged region produced more coal than any other county in West Virginia, but it got almost none of the wealth back as local investment." Today "nearly 47 percent of personal income in the county is from Social Security, disability insurance, food stamps and other federal programs… The poverty rate, 50 percent in 1960, declined-- partly as a result of federal benefits-- to 36 percent in 1970 and to 23.5 percent in 1980. But it soared to nearly 38 percent in 1990. For families with children, it now nears 41 percent."

McDowell County, the poorest in West Virginia, has been emblematic of entrenched American poverty for more than a half-century. John F. Kennedy campaigned here in 1960 and was so appalled that he promised to send help if elected president. His first executive order created the modern food stamp program, whose first recipients were McDowell County residents. When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty” in 1964, it was the squalor of Appalachia he had in mind. The federal programs that followed-- Medicare, Medicaid, free school lunches and others-- lifted tens of thousands above a subsistence standard of living.

But a half-century later, with the poverty rate again on the rise, hardship seems merely to have taken on a new face in McDowell County. The economy is declining along with the coal industry, towns are hollowed out as people flee, and communities are scarred by family dissolution, prescription drug abuse and a high rate of imprisonment.

Fifty years after the war on poverty began, its anniversary is being observed with academic conferences and ideological sparring-- often focused, explicitly or implicitly, on the “culture” of poor urban residents. Almost forgotten is how many ways poverty plays out in America, and how much long-term poverty is a rural problem.

Of the 353 most persistently poor counties in the United States-- defined by Washington as having had a poverty rate above 20 percent in each of the past three decades-- 85 percent are rural. They are clustered in distinct regions: Indian reservations in the West; Hispanic communities in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; a band across the Deep South and along the Mississippi Delta with a majority black population; and Appalachia, largely white, which has supplied some of America’s iconic imagery of rural poverty since the Depression-era photos of Walker Evans.

Friends of Democracy wasn't focusing just on McDowell County or on West Virginia or on the rural counties that account for so much of America's poverty when they issued a report on how progressives can run against Big Money in politics and win. "Washington," they wrote, "is broken. Faith and trust in Congress is at a historic low. Issues that matter to the American people are falling to the wayside. You’re not running for office to perpetuate the status quo, you’re running to change it. To improve your community, strengthen your state and fix our country. The good news is running on fixing our broken campaign finance system is good for you as a candidate as much as it is good for the country. 7 out of 8 congressional candidates who ran on this issue in 2012 won-- we’re looking to double that number in 2014."

Just 11 percent of voters think that they are the priority of members of Congress. Too many voters have little faith that their needs factor into decisions that politicians make, believing that politicians instead cater to big donors and special interests instead.


Voters view Washington’s inability to address major issues of the day, like getting the economy back on track and solving our national energy policy, as the result of a broken political system that rewards the best fundraisers rather than those who can move ideas forward. The issue of money in politics is, in most voters’ minds, inextricably linked to addressing the major challenges confronting all of us, rather than a separate policy area on which to make yet another set of promises.

…Two bills in Congress are gaining great traction. In February 2014, two bills were introduced-- the Government By the People Act (H.R. 20), introduced by Leader Pelosi and Rep. Sarbanes (D-MD) with 130 original co-sponsors and the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 2023), introduced by Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin with 16 original co-sponsors. Both bills have unprecedented support from Democrats in Congress, political campaign donors, the traditional reform community as well as the larger progressive movement.

Polling shows that almost two-thirds of voters support passing an election law that would couple small donations with matching funds in exchange for taking no large campaign checks and an even bigger number of independent voters say that a candidate's position of campaign finance reform will be an important factor in their choice on election day. Voters don't like the idea of feeling disempowered by Big Money buying up democracy. Even voters in the reddest areas of the country. You may have read that Kansas-- which hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the 1930s-- has a radical right governor, Sam Brownback, who just signed a bill guaranteeing that there will be no Medicaid Expansion in his state this year. Brownback is also the most hated governor in America and is very likely to lose his reelection bid-- to a Democrat-- in November. This month a poll showed Paul Davis beating Brownback 45-41%-- and by 48-35% among Independents. (Point of reference: Romney beat Obama in Kansas 60-38%, the Republican winning all but two of Kansas' 105 counties.)

Wisconsin is a much wealthier state than West Virginia. The medium household income is $50,395 as opposed to West Virginia's $38,482. But WI-07, the northwestern part of the state, has had a tougher time that most of the rest of the state. The medium household income is $45,868 and voters there see the connection between distorted wealth inequality and political power. The progressive Democrat running for Congress in the district this year is Kelly Westlund, who has been endorsed by Blue America. This morning she explained the connection:

"I knew our political process was broken when I decided to run for Congress, but I underestimated just how bad it really is. In a representative government, citizen voices ought to speak louder than campaign contributions, but as wealth consolidates at the very top, so does political power. The fact is, organizations on both sides of the aisle have embraced the money-driven approach to campaigning, and that means that the wealthy few can buy access to candidates and elected officials that regular people just can't afford. Equating money with free speech leaves the vast majority of middle- and working-class people at a serious disadvantage when it comes to engaging effectively in our shared democracy. I think that's wrong, and it's time we change it."

And speaking of disempowered voters, lets go back to West Virginia for a moment. In 2012 McDowell County also went for Romney and by an even greater margin than West Virginia as a whole-- 64-34%, two points better for the Republican than his statewide landslide. However, on the same day, Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin took 66% of the county's vote for governor and Democrat Joe Manchin took a startling 72% for the U.S. Senate seat. Democrat Nick Rahall was reelected to the House against Republican Rick Snuffer 65-35%. Short of kicking mass drug addiction, will getting Big Money out of politics turn things around for McDowell County? It's worth trying.

As Adam Liptak reported for the NY Times yesterday, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says "the court had made a disastrous wrong turn in its recent string of campaign finance rulings. "The voter is less important than the man who provides money to the candidate," he said. "It’s really wrong."

He talked about what he called a telling flaw in the opening sentence of last month’s big campaign finance ruling. He filled in some new details about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to the Citizens United decision. And he called for a constitutional amendment to address what he said was the grave threat to American democracy caused by the torrent of money in politics.