II. On Political Rights
As a renowned political scientist pointed out, the U.S. political system has decayed over time, and in an environment of sharp political polarization, this decentralized system gives excessive representation to the views of interest groups and activist organizations (Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014). Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said that the world sees "a democracy that's not working" (www.usatoday.com, October 11, 2013). It revealed the institutional root for the fact that the political rights of U.S. citizens had not been effectively protected.
Money is still a deciding factor for the U.S. politics. Total spending in the 2014 midterm races was projected to top 4 billion U.S. dollars nationwide, making it the most expensive midterm election in history (www.latimes.com, October 28, 2014). Outside groups with political agendas picked up a larger share of the bill. More money than ever in the midterm came from secret sources. The influence of average Americans on the election results diminished (www.usatoday.com, November 2, 2014). "K Street" in Washington, D.C. -- located between Capitol Hill and the White House and known as a metonym for the country's lobbing industry -- became the fourth power center in the U.S. after administration, legislation and justice. Behind legalized lobbying was the political manipulation by money and capital. Unfettered corporate political donations became "legalized bribery" (www.usatoday.com, October 11, 2013). According to a USA Today report on September 10, 2014, "dark money" kept flowing into elections since a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2010 opened the floodgate on political donations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case on January 21, 2010 that the rules to restrict election campaign expenditures by for-profit corporations was in violation of the Constitution. During the 2014 campaign season, dark money exceeded 53 million U.S. dollars, up from 16 million U.S. dollars in 2010 (www.usatoday.com, September 10, 2014). Everything wrong with campaigns for other offices - big money, special interest groups and TV attack ads - also infected judicial election. Spending by outside groups to elect judges increased eight-fold from before the 2002 elections to that leading up to 2012 (www.usatoday.com, October 28, 2014). A legal scholar points out that interest groups are able to influence members of Congress legally simply by making donations and waiting for unspecified return favors. The democratic process has been corrupted or hijacked. In the contemporary U.S., elites speak the language of liberty but are perfectly happy to settle for privilege (Foreign Affairs, September/October 2014).
The voting rights of racial minorities and other groups are under suppression. The voting rights in the U.S. are restricted by economic income, race and other factors, and many citizens were prevented from voting. Preliminary exit polls showed that voters of African origins accounted for 12 percent in the 2014 midterm election, down from 13 percent in the 2012 presidential election. Hispanic voters dropped from 10 percent in 2012 to 8 percent and the proportion of Asian voters also reduced to two percent from three percent (www.usatoday.com, November 5, 2014). In 2014, the Supreme Court said that Texas could use its controversial new voter identification law for the November election. Roughly 600,000 voters, many of them black or Latino, could be turned away at the polls because they lacked acceptable identification (www.dailymail.co.uk, October 18, 2014). Voting rights advocates were up in arms over the socioeconomic and racial factors of these new restrictions (www.upi.com, November 3, 2014). In addition, criminal disenfranchisement removed massive swaths of society from the democratic process as a collateral consequence of conviction. A striking 5.85 million Americans could not vote because of a criminal conviction before. Many disenfranchised citizens lived in Iowa, Kentucky, or Florida -- the three states with extreme policies of disenfranchising anyone with a felony conviction for life (www.aclu.org, November 17, 2014).
The American citizens have increasingly lost confidence in electoral politics. According to most polls, Americans approached the 2014 elections in a sour mood. Two-thirds said the nation had gotten off on the wrong track (www.usatoday.com, November 2, 2014). According to a report by the Huffington Post on December 2, 2014, only nine percent of Americans approved of Congress in the weeks leading up to the midterms elections (www.huffingtonpost.com, December 2, 2014). In contrast to the high costs, general election voter turnout for the 2014 midterms was the lowest in any election cycle since the World War II. As of November 3, 2014, only 36.4 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots. Indiana had the lowest turnout rate, with just 28 percent of eligible voters participating (www.washingtonpost.com, November 10, 2014).
