Dances With Puppets
How much allegiance do legislators owe to their campaign contributors?
Essential Estrogen has chided Rep. Dawn Pettengill for her opposition to the union shop bill known as Fair Share, saying “You Gotta Dance With Them What Brung Ya.” EE points to Pettengill’s sources of campaign contributions and suggest she owes them her vote.
So contributors are more important than constituents?
Contributors are indeed out to buy influence, but legislators are under no moral obligation to sell out when they accept contributions. It’s a gamble on the part of the contributors (with the odds in their favor). How else can candidates proceed? Few candidates have such safe districts or such winsome personalities that they can forego large party or PAC contributions and still expect to beat a better-financed opponent.
If Essential Estrogen has the moral landscape right, they have endorsed a vicious circle. The status quo will keep electing candidates who were financed with special interest money until the Governor signs a new law ending the system. But we can’t get there unless legislators break out of the circle by jilting all their contributors when they vote to end privately paid campaigns. Those contributors want to maintain their influence, so all who vote for VOICE will be acting similarly to Pettengill.
Legislators who act primarily in the interest of major contributors aren’t dancing with those that brung them so much as they are dancing like puppets on a string. Is that a party candidates really want to attend?