Washington: Since the US Supreme Court scrapped most of what was left of political fund-raising controls last week, much has been made of the increased potential for rich people to buy influence.
Less has been said about how the campaign finance arms race has ruined the working lives of members of Congress, who now spend more of their energy – indeed, arguably more of their waking lives – begging for money than they do focused on any other single issue.
Walt Minnick lost his congressional seat in 2011, after the court's Citizens United decision allowed associations and companies to spend as much as they liked on political causes but before last week’s McCutcheon decision massively increased donation limits for individuals. But, even back then, he had to meet a daily fund-raising target of at least $US10,000.
To get anywhere near that amount, he says, took all of his family time and at least three hours of his working day. He estimates that, under the new laws, he would have dedicate twice as much time to keep in the race.
A conservative Democrat representing the 600,000 or so residents of the Idaho first congressional district, Minnick began each day at his desk at 4.30am, dictating letters to potential donors he had contacted or met the day before. After a jog and a flick through the newspapers, he would be in his office in time for a 7am meeting and a few hours of work.
Then, because fund-raising from a federal building is illegal, he would walk a block down the street from his grand congressional office in the Rayburn building across the road from the US Capitol to a town house rented by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. There he would squeeze into a call centre pen alongside his colleagues and hit the phones, begging anyone and everyone he had ever met for money.
Sometimes, Minnick says, he would hit his target in a couple of hours and get back to work. Other times he would have to call his office to cancel committee meetings so he could keep working through his call lists.
"It was the most distasteful thing I have ever had to do," he says.
Once he had hit his daily targets, Minnick would head back to his office to try to squeeze in a few hours of work before attending dinners or functions with fund-raisers, lobbyists or interest groups in order to beg for even more money. At about 11pm, he would sleep for a few hours before beginning again.
Minnick dismisses the Supreme Court’s apparent conclusion in McCutcheon that only "quid pro quo" corruption perverts the US's democratic system.
"[Fund-raising] corrupted every decision you made," he says. "Every vote you made, you had to consider how it might affect your fund-raising, or how it could be used to fund-raise against you."
He says while the Republican Party brought the most recent case to the Supreme Court and, though its leadership, celebrated the victory, every single member of Congress from both sides of the aisle he has spoken to despises fund-raising and how it has debased their work.
"It is soul destroying," he says.
Minnick says though he misses legislating, his life has improved now that his friends and family have stopped screening his phone calls.
Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon says that the fund-raising demands threaten the very fabric of the US's democratic institutions. He still spends miserable hours in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s call centre hitting his targets, just as his Republican colleagues spend hours on the phone in their own call centres.
"You go in there and it is just rows of phones about two feet apart," he says.
He tries to save time by riding his bike between the office and the call centre but he still resents the hours he spends in there.
The worst period for DeFazio was the 10 weeks he spent in a race for a vacated Senate seat.
"I would spend all day [in the call centre], then get in a car to get to functions and make calls from the car," he says. "Then, in the airport, I would be making calls. Then, on the flight, you would be sitting there on the airphone making calls at $5 a minute and the person next you would look at you like you were mad and you’d be saying ‘if you can’t do $2000, how about $1000? How about $500?' "
The fund-raising demands were so hectic that, while in the call centre, he would keep an eye on his pager, which would sound a warning 10 minutes and then five minutes before a vote in the House, at which point he would race back on his bike.
Often, he says, Congress members scuttling back and forth from their respective call centres would have no idea what they were voting on.
DeFazio was out-spent and lost the race but he had done well enough that the Democratic leadership suggested he give up his seat in the House of Representatives and make another run for the Senate, a huge step up in a an American political career. He flatly refused.
"I calculated that I would have to raise $15,000 a day every day, seven days a week for a full year," he says. "I like legislating. It would have been a complete waste of a year of my life."
And even if he had won the race and become a senator, facing election only every six years rather than every two in the House, he would still have had to keep raising money.
Both parties expect their senior representatives, especially those on powerful committees who tend to attract bigger donations, to raise even more money on behalf of their less fortunate colleagues.
It would not be that hard to write laws to dampen the need for so much cash and DeFazio has already backed several proposals. Donation or spending limits could be reintroduced or elections could be publicly funded.
The problem at the moment, say DeFazio and Minnick, is that the Supreme Court has made its position clear.
The conservative majority believes that because corporations are associations of people, they have a right to free speech. And because political speech is best bought with huge sums of money, more money equals more speech and ever more freedom.
For those with a heap of money, that is.
