Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, could hold the key to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s future. Hers is one of a small handful of uncommitted Senate votes that could power Kavanaugh to a seat on the high court or deal a devastating blow to conservative efforts to tilt the court’s balance in their favor.
As if that’s not pressure enough, a crowdfunding campaign involving more than 40,000 Kavanaugh opponents has formed to warn Collins that a wrong move could put her own future in jeopardy. They threaten to massively fund Collins’ as-yet-unnamed future Democratic opponent if she votes to confirm Kavanaugh. The campaign already has raised more than $1.1 million, an amount almost equal to Collins’ current cash on hand.
People are also reading…
If the funds came from “dark money” donors whose names were deliberately kept secret, we would condemn this with the same zeal we condemn other such campaigns. But hundreds of donors are posting their names on the Crowdpac.com website with their pledges. The campaign asks donors to pledge by credit card, but the charge won’t be processed unless Collins votes to confirm Kavanaugh.
What appears to be a valuable new tool to empower voters and amplify their voices has generated a sharp rebuke from Collins. She told Newsmax: “I consider this quid pro quo fundraising to be the equivalent of an attempt to bribe me to vote against Judge Kavanaugh.”
All political campaigns, including Collins’ own campaign fund, rely on donations, and donors rarely give purely out of the goodness of their hearts. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld campaign donations as legitimate forms of free speech. In fact, Collins herself has defended the practice.
It’s unclear how the conditional crowdfunding campaign could be construed as bribery if other lobbying efforts involving much more money from far more obscured sources are embraced by Collins and others as perfectly acceptable. More than 40 percent of Collins’ campaign contributions come from political action committees with business before the Senate, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Collins’ supporters back the bribery argument, citing the definition of offering public officials “anything of value” to influence a public act. But if, say, Barack Obama declared he would endorse Collins if she voted against Kavanaugh, he would have offered her something of value to influence her vote. Would that be bribery?
Organizing electoral opposition in response to policy decisions is pivotal to a functioning democracy. Whether Collins should accede to these demands is an entirely different question — and one she has to decide for herself.
In lieu of meaningful campaign-finance reform, conditional crowdfunding offers a unique opportunity for everyday voters to hold their politicians accountable. The Collins crowdfund proves that a large amount of small contributions targeted at specific policies can generate enough money and heat to compete with mega-donor big guys. That’s democracy in action.
