Opinion: Austin Sarat on the Supreme Court’s Take Down of Constitutional Democracy

I was both gratified and puzzled by the commentary of Amherst College’s Austin Sarat in The Guardian this week; gratified because I agree with it, and puzzled because what he decries in Washington, he apparently accepts in Amherst.

In accurately noting the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, Sarat begins his story with the incredible 2010 Citizens United decision in which the Court invoked the age-old fiction that corporations are legally individuals and have the same rights to make unlimited political contributions as long as they are not directed specifically to individual candidates. He cites the Brennan Center for Justice’s conclusion that this decision led to the creation of SuperPACs, which can now make secret contributions to political campaigns, not only injecting huge wealth into national politics but also concentrating the power that such wealth brings. All true, and truly awful.

But it is true and awful at the local level as well, although Sarat doesn’t talk about that. A PAC in Amherst has had a desultory influence in the creation of the Home Rule Charter under which we are currently governed, in the election of our Town Council which concentrates executive and legislative powers as the Charter permits – indeed, requires – and in the sad efforts to amend the Charter which we have recently endured.

We don’t know how Amherst Forward spends its money to influence Amherst elections, nor do we know how much money is involved. We do know that, thanks to the Supreme Court, their efforts are legal. Sarat’s remedy is, first, the ballot box and, then, an enlightened legislature. This has a depressing ring, given the history of voting both nationally and locally.

In Amherst, especially as a university town, many long-term residents are prevented from voting in local elections because they are not US citizens, and many transient residents have little interest in voting because their primary residential affiliation is with their institutions, not their town. As for an enlightened legislature, I have not heard any town councillors complain that they have too much power.

My remedies? First, allow permanent residents of the town to vote in town elections, regardless of citizenship. Town Meeting endorsed this position year after year, and year after year it died in the State House. We should press Senator Comerford and Representative Domb to tell us how we can get this approved by the State Legislature and what they will do to accomplish this.

Second, give the franchise in town elections to 16-year-old voters. (My own preference would be 14-year-olds and state elections as well, but I can be as realistic as the next person.) Time and time again, middle school and high school students in Amherst have shown themselves to be informed and enlightened about town and school issues. And I am convinced that they would vote, transforming our electorate and our local politics.

Third, ask influential local residents like Austin Sarat to urge Amherst Forward to be more forthcoming about their finances and their selection of candidates to support. Voters need more transparency from PACs and SuperPACs that are not required to provide it. The old saying, “Think Globally and Act Locally”, has never been more applicable than it is at this moment.

Sarat is right about the threat to democracy. But that threat is more local than he acknowledges. 

Michael Greenebaum was Principal of Mark’s Meadow School from 1970 to 1991, and from 1974 taught Organization Studies in the Higher Education Center at the UMass School of Education.  He served in Town Meeting from 1992, was on the first Charter Commission in 1993, and served on several town committees, including the Town Commercial Relations Committee and the Long Range Planning Committee.