A System That Rewards Just Those Who Flash Cash Is Bankrupt

The race by Republicans and Democrats to fill campaign coffers with “soft money,” about $50 million of it in two nights alone in May, threatens to drown out the voices of America’s most recent immigrants who simply cannot afford to participate in our new high-dollar, pay-for-play democracy.

For seven years, I have sought to include and empower a broad range of American Muslims in our political discourse at a reasonable price, bearing a bulk of the high-dollar burden myself. But as an American-born son of Pakistani immigrants whose Wall Street fortune fueled this big-money game, I am deeply concerned that my own largess perhaps irretrievably has weakened our less wealthy but equally articulate community voices. The cause: the high expectation value my political giving--and that of other wealthy emigres--has created for their political participation.

Rather than building a base of voter support and other institutionalized mechanisms to practice democracy, wealthy immigrants have concentrated efforts on using big money to gain access to the inner sanctum of U.S. politics and policymaking--with little meaningful effect. Rather than pioneering a pathway for the masses to participate and showing them the value of their voices being heard, big-money activism has disintegrated into shouting matches over who should be allowed to host what headline politician where and for how much. Not only have important issues taken a sideline, but when issues are raised, wealthy contributors dominate the debate with fractured and dubious causes from faraway lands that have little to do with the assimilation process that average immigrants must go through just to survive.

Sadly, my political activities increasingly may demonstrate how not to participate in what should be a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people.

I was drawn into American politics by President Clinton in 1993 when, at my first fund-raiser, he urged Americans to find ways of including and empowering America’s “underclass”--those people at the entry level of our country’s economic, social and political spectrum who, having tried to gain a foothold in society, were simply not able to participate because the barriers to entry were so great.

New immigrants, it seemed to me, were the ideal embodiment of this political thesis. So I decided to get involved. Inspired by that night, I have either given or raised $920,000 from 37 fund-raisers with as many as 500 people all across the United States. I did so primarily under the tutelage of Democrats, because their racial, religious and ethnic inclusion in American diversity appealed to my sense of equality and justice.

But the more I gave, the more they wanted. And they wanted more because our political system had left them with few choices. It has run amok with the plethora of moneyed interests that landed on these shores before my parents. My voice has certainly been heard, but the voices of those who did not give as much or as often have not.

Rather than using my financial shoulders to empower those less fortunate in our communities and draw them into our democratic culture, our political operatives seized upon my networking and outreach to fill the system with ever-increasing amounts of soft money--given to parties and causes rather than to specific candidates. In the process, they brought in immigrants whose political ideas represented personal agendas and oversized egos rather than meaningful activism.

Here is one recent example of how the race for money has priced new immigrants out of the market: My wife and I were to host a fund-raiser for Vice President Al Gore under the banner of Gore 2000, with 100 guests, mostly new immigrants, each giving the legal maximum of $1,000. But the event was postponed in order to raise a much larger sum ($500,000) of soft money from the same guest list under the banner of the Democratic National Committee. Proceeds would have been used to buy television time for “issue” commercials.

Not only could many of these new entrants not afford to attend, but many scolded me for exacerbating what they clearly saw as the corrosion of American democracy. Perhaps their political experiences from back home were voices we all needed to hear. One Pakistani American friend asked me what the difference was between a Pakistani feudal landlord buying votes in his local district and an American politician buying votes with soft money “infomercials.” I had no rational answer.

Immigrant renewal is an underpinning of America’s greatness. Losing touch with new immigrants and their fresh ideas for how we reshape our democracy is a recipe for disaster. I for one no longer will make any soft money contributions, either personally or from any of my companies.

Perhaps the destruction to America’s political fabric caused by superstar fund-raising and its sleazy byproducts can be avoided. Certainly, a political culture that rewards those who flash their cash and forgets ordinary Americans while telling voiceless immigrants they need to participate is in need of urgent repair.