美国大选的金钱与政治
How Can the U.S. Shrink the Influence of Money in Politics?
There’s no separating money from politics. Or is there?
金钱和政治分不开，果真如此吗？
Money and its potentially corrupting influence is at the very heart of complaints about politics in the United States, and every two years, many candidates promise voters that they’ll try to reform a system that they say has been broken by congressional inaction and the Supreme Court.
金钱与其潜在的腐败影响是人们对美国政治不满的主要原因，每过两年，诸多候选人向选民承诺，他们要改革被国会不作为和最高法院破坏的制度。
Over the last year, Bernie Sanders has built his presidential campaign around the charge that the influence of wealthy individuals and corporations in elections has led to the passage of laws that have widened the chasm between the rich and the poor.
去年，伯尼·桑德斯参加总统竞选的主张，就是指责富人和公司发挥选举中的影响力以通过扩大贫富差距的法律。
Hillary Clinton has also called for significant campaign-finance reform, and even Donald Trump has joined in, calling out his Republican rivals for being beholden to their major donors. Most other Republicans have rejected calls for reform on the principle that political speech should not be restricted.
希拉里·克林顿也呼吁对选举筹款进行重大改革，甚至唐纳德·特朗普也加入阵营，称其共和党对手欠了主要捐赠者的情。可大多数共和党人以不能限制政治言论为准则，拒绝改革。
Here we take a look at the claims about the influence of money on politics and the various proposals to reduce it.
金钱对政治的影响几何？要求降低其影响的各路建议如何？我们来看看。
The problem of money in politics is so universally recognized that even Donald Trump, the ultimate capitalist, and Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, agree on it.
金钱政治的问题广为人知，甚至终极资本主义者唐纳德·特朗普和自诩为民主社会主义者伯尼·桑德斯都达成一致。
Sanders has spent his career railing against the corrupting influence of wealthy and corporate donors, while Trump has unmasked the game by admitting that he gave money to politicians to curry favor with them.
桑德斯一直以来抗议财富和公司捐赠者的腐败影响，特朗普也揭露他也为了巴结政客而出钱。
unmask：（揭露）reveal the true nature of
例句：But the damage was done, leading the GOP establishment to suggest that Trump had finally been unmasked as a conservative impostor.
The success of both of these politicians suggests the degree to which Americans are fed up with the influence of money on politics. If we don't reduce that influence, our system risks losing its legitimacy.
这些政客的成功都表明美国人受够了金钱对政治的影响。如果不降低这种影响，我们的制度可能失去其合法性。
Trump’s truth-telling aside (if that’s what it is), this premise is much shakier and polarizing than political rhetoric often makes it seem. Can money be separated from politics?
且不论特朗普自揭黑幕（如果真是如此），这一假设比政治言辞更不可靠、更两极化。金钱能和政治一分为二吗？
shaky: （不可靠的）not secure; beset with difficulties.
例句：Stocks have wavered as investors await quarterly earnings, and many are bracing for another shaky quarter.
The answer to that is almost certainly no. At their core, democratic elections are a battle of personalities and ideas, and the only way to inform voters about their choices in an election is make sure that the messages of candidates reach them.
答案几乎可以肯定是否定的。说到底，民主选举是一场人格和思想的比拼，让投票者在一次选举中知道其观点的唯一办法是确保候选者的意思传达给他们。
And just about any way you cut it, that’s going to cost money—whether it’s to pay for advertising, to set up and run a website, to hire people as staffers, or to hold rallies or events that the media will cover.
可要做到这一点必须要花钱，无论打广告，设立和运营网站，还是雇人，或是主办集会或活动让媒体报道，都要掏钱。
Campaigns for local office can often be run on the cheap. Candidates rely on volunteers to run their campaigns and on social media, rather than paid advertising, to spread their message. But they're never totally free.
竞选地方职位通常花费不多。候选者可以依靠志愿者运作，在社交媒体上宣传，而不用花钱打广告，但这也不是免费的。
The Holy Grail for many campaign-finance reformers is publicly-funded elections, but even in cities and states that have them currently, most are based on matching funds, which requires candidates to raise a minimum amount of money to demonstrate viability.
许多选举筹资改革者的“圣杯”是公助选举，可即便有公助选举的市和州，多数也实行对等捐款额，这要求候选人筹集最低数额的资金，以证明其参选实力。
And proposals for public funding of elections in Congress don’t totally eliminate private donations, either.
在国会选举中推行公助筹资的建议也没有完全禁止私人捐助。
So that leads us to a second question: If we could separate money from politics, should we? This is really the fundamental divide over campaign financing in the United States.
这就引发了第二个问题：就算能够把金钱和政治一分为二，我们应该这么做吗？这是美国竞选筹款制度的根本分歧。
The Supreme Court’s 2010 was based on the principle—long shared by conservatives—that campaign contributions are a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment.
最高法院2010年对“公民联盟诉联邦选举委员会”一案的决定，就基于保守人士长期持有的原则，即竞选捐款是一种政治言论形式，受到宪法《第一修正案》的保护。
And to the dismay of most Democrats, the Citizens United ruling extended those protections not just to individuals but to corporations (and labor unions), leading critics to charge that the Supreme Court had decreed that corporations were effectively the same as people.
令多数民主党人感到失望，公民联盟一案裁定保护范围不限于个人，对公司和工会也一样，这让批评者指责最高法院判定，公司实际上等同于个人。
Whatever the interpretation, the ruling inarguably allowed wealthy individuals, businesses, and other groups to use money to influence elections with more freedom than they had before.
无论如何解释，这一裁决毫无疑问允许有钱人、企业和其他组织用金钱影响选举，比以前更加自由。
If Citizens United was so pivotal in aggravating the problem, the Supreme Court should overturn it. The ruling misinterpreted the First Amendment as a protection of money in politics, and it conflated corporations with individuals in a way that opened the floodgates for companies to spend millions—or even billions—to influence elections.
如果说公民联盟一案令问题恶化，最高法院应该推翻判决。这一判决将《第一修正案》错误解释为对金钱政治的保护，它将公司与个人混为一谈，为公司花费数百万甚至数亿万资金影响选举打开闸门。
conflate: A more formal way to say "mix together." You probably wouldn't say you conflated the ingredients for a cake, but if you blended two different stories together to make a new one, conflate would work.
例句：Apple should also stop conflating the broader issue of encryption with helping unlock a single iPhone.
What precedent is there for the Court to reverse itself so quickly and dramatically?
最高法院迅速且戏剧化地推翻自己的判决，有先例吗？
Right now there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and whoever replaces the late Justice Antonin Scalia could determine the fate of Citizens United.
目前最高法院有一个空缺，无论谁接替已故大法官安东宁·斯卡利亚，都足以决定公民联盟一案的命运。
Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have pledged to appoint someone who would overturn the 2010 ruling, and while that’s a litmus test that President Obama hasn’t explicitly endorsed, it’s unlikely that anyone he nominates will win confirmation by the Republican-led Senate.
希拉里和桑德斯都声言要任命推翻2010判决的法官。这既然是总统奥巴马桑未公开承认的石蕊实验，他提名的任何人都不可能获得共和党领导的参议院的批准。
The GOP presidential candidates, by contrast, are pledging to appoint a justice in the mold of Scalia, who voted in support of Citizens United. Still, even if a Democratic president decides Scalia’s replacement, the decision is now a precedent of the high court, and there’s no guarantee the justices will revisit the case—or a similar challenge—in the immediate future.
相反，共和党总统候选人承诺任命和斯卡利亚一样的法官，支持公民联合一案。就算民主党总统决定谁来接替斯卡利亚，这一决定已成为高等法院的判例，不能保证法官在不久的未来会重翻旧案，或再次提起诉讼。
Even if the Supreme Court did reverse itself, would that have the effect of significantly reducing money in politics? Overturning Citizens United could lead to restrictions on or the elimination of super PACs that have sprung up as a result of the ruling and subsequent decisions by lower courts.
就算最高法院翻了案，能显著降低金钱在政治中的作用吗？推翻公民联盟一案的判决会导致限制或取消超级政治行动委员会，后者因低等法院的裁决而产生。
https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=n0192xgn7m5&width=500&height=375&auto=0
Super PACs cannot contribute to or coordinate directly with candidates, but they can raise and spending unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose them.
超级政治行动委员会不能直接捐款或与候选人协作，但他们可以筹集不限数额的资金支持或反对他们。
And the Supreme Court has loosened campaign-finance regulations in other ways, such as a 5-4 ruling in 2014 that scrapped the limits on the total amount of money that wealthy donors could contribute to candidates and committees.
最高法院已通过其他方式放松了竞选筹款的规定，2014年以5比4取消了富有捐赠者可向候选人和委员会捐款的总额限制。
“There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision.
大法官约翰·罗伯茨在裁决中写到：“我们的民主制度中，没有什么权利比参与选举政治领导人更基本。”
“We have made clear that Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others.”
“我们表明，国会不能简单降低政治献金或限制某些人的政治参与而增强其他人的相对影响力来管理捐款。”
It’s also important to remember that prior to the ruling, wealthy corporate interests had plenty of latitude use their money to influence elections. Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which tore into John Kerry's Vietnam record with the help of millions of dollars from conservative donors in 2004?
要知道，在这一裁定之前，财力雄厚的公司利益已拥有足够空间运用金钱来影响政治，还记得“说实话的快艇老兵”2004年在来自保守人士捐赠的数百万美元的帮助下，攻击克里的越战经历吗？
Money played a big part in elections before the Citizens United decision, and it will play a big part even if it is overturned by the Supreme Court.
钱在公民联盟裁决前就发挥巨大作用，就算最高法院推翻了该案，它依旧不可小觑。
If overturning Citizens United won’t fix things, we should toughen up disclosure requirements so that at least people will know what individuals and organizations are paying for the ads they see on TV.
如果说翻案无济于事，我们应该加强信息披露，至少让人们知道哪些人和组织在电视上打了广告。
How would you get Congress to act on this, given their inability to muster the votes to boost disclosure in the past? Even in Citizens United, the Supreme Court made clear that it was not restricting Congress’s ability to require organizations to disclose their donors. But Congress isn't likely to budge anytime soon.
国会又怎么会推动这项议程呢？他们过去在投票促进披露方面毫无作为。即便是公民联盟一案，最高法院表明不限制国会要求组织披露其捐赠者的能力，可国会都没有改变态度。
budge:（微微改变）To budge is to move — but just a little bit. People can budge physically from where they're sitting or standing, and people can budge from opinions and positions too.
例句：When Fed presidents have raised alarms on regulatory issues, they have rarely budged national policy.
The Republicans in charge of the House and Senate—and in particular Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—oppose campaign-finance restrictions on principle.
由共和党主掌的参众两院，尤其是参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康纳反对对竞选筹款做出原则性限制。
Even when Democrats had the majority, they fell a single vote short in the Senate of passing the Disclose Act, which would have toughened transparency requirements in response to Citizens United.
就算民主党人拥有多数席位时，《披露法案》时仍差一票，未在参议院通过，这一法案本可以针对公民联盟一案裁决而加强透明度要求。
One of the big fears among good-government groups after Citizens United was that wealthy donors, corporations, and unions would not only be able to spend unlimited sums of money, but that they would try to do so secretly because of the loose disclosure requirements that allow donors to funnel money to super PACs through committees that don’t have to disclose the source of their contributions.
通过公民联盟裁决后，善政组织最大的担忧是富有的捐赠者、公司和工会不仅能无限制地捐款，还可能会秘密行事，因为宽松的披露要求让捐赠者可以把钱输入超级政治行动委员会，而委员会无需披露捐赠来源。
funnel: （漏进）If a company is funneling money into research and development, it is spending lots of money in that department.
例句：The leaked files suggest that Roldugin is not keeping this wealth for himself, but is funneling the money to Putin's inner circle.
On the presidential level, that hasn’t played out quite so dramatically—if only because so many of the wealthiest donors in both parties have made donations directly to super PACs supporting candidates, allowing their names to be attached to them.
在总统选举层面，这还没那么明显，因为两党有众多富有的实名捐赠者直接向支持候选人的超级政治行动委员会捐赠。
But according to , secret money accounted for two-thirds of the political-ad spending in the 2016 campaign through the end of January.
但彭博新闻的一个分析显示，截至1月底，秘密资金占2016年大选中政治广告支出的三分之二。
Forget the wealthy and corporations. They’re always going to have influence in elections, one way or another. We need to focus on empowering average people by reinvigorating and expanding the public-financing system for campaigns, both on the federal and local levels.
别纠结富人和公司了，他们总能以这样、那样的方式对大选施加影响。我们需要关注在联邦和地方两个层面重振和扩张选举中的公共筹款制度，向普通人赋权。
How could the government get enough money to finance elections at a level that would be an effective counterweight to the oodles of private money out there?
政府如何获得足够资金来资助选举，对庞大的私人资金形成有效抗衡呢？
Ironically, it may have been Barack Obama who killed the federal public-financing system for presidential elections when he opted not to participate in 2008, despite his support for public financing in principle.
讽刺的是，可能正是决定不参加2008年大选的奥巴马终结了总统选举的联邦公共筹款制度，尽管他原则上支持公共筹款。
Since then, neither Obama nor any of the Republican nominees has accepted federal matching funds in exchange for strict limits on campaign spending, and neither of the nominees this year is expected to, either.
此后，奥巴马和共和党提名人都不接受以联邦对等资金，换取对竞选支出的严格限制，今年也不会有提名人接受。
The presidential race has simply become too expensive for Democrats to “unilaterally disarm” and agree to restrict their spending, the argument goes, and Congress has not updated the program in more than 40 years.
对民主党人而言，总统竞选太昂贵了，以至于没办法“单方面缴械”而同意限制支出，国会四十多年来从未更新这一程序。
The odds may be long, but Democrats and advocates for campaign-finance reform have been pushing to modernize and expand the system. One proposal, known as the , would have the government match small-dollar donations at a 6-to-1 rate (or higher under certain conditions) while also giving people a $25 refundable tax credit to encourage political donations.
尽管可能性很小，可民主党和选举筹款改革支持者一直在推动这一制度的现代化和成长。一项名为《民治政府法案》的提议拟让政府以六比一的比率配比小额捐款，在某种情况下还会更高，同时给予25美元的退税额度，鼓励政治捐赠。
The has similar provisions but would also allow candidates to raise unlimited donations so long as they did not individually exceed $150.
《公平选举法案》也有类似条款，但也允许候选人筹集数额不限的捐款，只要每个人捐赠不超过150美元。
The idea is to level the playing field for candidates who can demonstrate a minimum level of support while also helping to free up incumbent members of Congress from the burden of spending hours each day dialing for dollars rather than working on legislation or helping their constituents.
这个想法拉平了候选人的起跑线，他们可以证明最低程度的支持，又让现任国会议员不必每天打数小时电话找钱，因此没法专心地立法和帮助选民。
Neither of these bills have any chance of passing, however, under a Republican-controlled Congress.
可在共和党控制的国会中，两个法案都不会通过。
As with many election reforms, the action is now mostly at the local level. Last November, Seattle voters approved a system whereby citizens could contribute to candidates in local races without spending a dime of their own money.
许多选举改革主要发生在地方层面。去年11月，西雅图选民批准公民可以不花自己的钱向地方候选者捐赠。
The city government will instead send registered voters four $25 vouchers that they can give to the candidate of their choice.
市政府会向注册选民发四张25美元的代金券，他们可以选择投给自己中意的候选者。
“The promise of vouchers is turning every single voter in the city into a donor,” Alan Durning, the executive director of the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, .
西雅图视线学会执行主任阿兰·德宁去年秋天对我说：“代金券让城市的每一个选民都成为捐赠者。”
Yet even if public financing empowers ordinary citizens, it is not a panacea for political corruption. Just look at New York City, which has had both a popular public-financing system for decades and no shortage of crooked local legislators in recent years.
可就算公共筹款赋权了普通公民，这也并非解决政治腐败的万灵药。看看纽约市，几十年来一直有公共筹款制度，可近年来也不乏地方议员的丑闻。
To play devil’s advocate for a second, maybe money really isn’t as big of an influence in politics as it’s cracked up to be (夸大断定). After all, Jeb Bush and the super PAC supporting him spent $130 million and won nothing in 2016.
唱一唱反调，可能金钱并没有人们想象中那么有用。毕竟在2016年，杰布·布什和他的超级政治行动委员会花了1.3亿美元，还是一无所获。
Michael Bloomberg is one of the richest men in the country and although that bought him three elections as mayor of New York, he determined that not even $1 billion could buy him the presidency. And Donald Trump is winning without spending a ton of money, in relative terms.
布隆伯格是美国最富有的人之一，尽管这让他三次当选纽约市长，可他认为10亿美元都买不到总统。相比而言，特朗普没花生么钱却不断获胜。
You’re right—Jeb Bush didn’t do well even with all the money spent on his behalf, but you could also argue that if he didn’t have the cash he did, he would have dropped out long before Republicans even started voting. The same is true of Ben Carson, who stuck around long after his poll numbers cratered.
说得对，就算花了那么多钱，布什做的差劲也无济于事，但你也可以说如果没那些钱，他在共和党开始投票前就已经落败了。本·卡森也是一样，民调落后，他还是坚持了很久。
And, yes, it’s true that Trump has succeeded not because of how much money he’s spent but how successful he has been at getting the media to cover him—allowing him to get his message out nearly for free.
没错，特朗普的成功并非因为他花了多少钱，而是他成功吸引了媒体，让他可以近乎免费传达自己的意见。
There are so many factors that figure into a presidential race that money is not always paramount.
有很多因素在总统竞选中起作用，金钱并不总是最重要的。
But what about congressional, state, and local elections that don’t get as much media attention? In those contests, money can play a much bigger role. It can be the difference in whether a candidate gets noticed or an issue gets raised, and which side spends the most is more often a determining factor in the outcome of an election.
可媒体不太关注的国会选举，州选举和地方选举又如何呢？在这些竞争中，金钱的作用更大。候选人是否被关注，能否提出议题，这会产生很大不同，因此哪方花钱更多，会成为选举结果的决定性因素。