David Sirota, Medill ’98, witnessed corruption in the political system firsthand.
“Through the experience I’ve had in politics, I had a front row seat to the political corruption – not with any of the people I worked with, of course,” he said.
After graduating from Northwestern with a double major in political science and journalism, Sirota, a former Daily staffer, worked as a political strategist for Democratic candidates across the United States.
He has also served as the spokesman for the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee.
Sirota used his experiences to outline the problems with the political system in his book, “Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government – and How We Take It Back,” which was released in early May. Sirota said he wrote the book because he wanted to help people see a different aspect of corruption.
“Corruption is really about big money interests controlling politics,” he said. “I hope it will educate people about exactly what’s wrong. People know something’s wrong in the system, but they don’t know exactly what’s wrong.”
Sirota said politicians use euphemisms to make people think they care about the public good when they are interested merely in serving big-business. The problem affects both parties, Sirota said.
“Our political system sells out the interests of regular Americans,” Sirota said. “In our current system, politicians beg big money interests for campaign cash and end up representing the interests of big business.”
Sirota said the government can remedy the problem by using public funds to finance campaigns.
“When candidates run, if they meet certain requirements, they should be entitled to public financing,” he said.
Public financing of races would decrease instances of corruption, Sirota said.
“Big money interests use campaign cash to get what they want,” he said. “If you want to restore democracy, you have got to attack that problem.”
But Kenneth Janda, professor emeritus in political science and journalism at NU, said the change to publicly financing races cannot be easily implemented.
“Any proposal for altering funding of races has to deal with problems of incumbents,” Janda said. “Incumbents are where they are because they play the system well. It’s a monumental task to tell incumbents they have to use the same funds as their opponents.”
Janda added that it would be easier to implement changes on the congressional level than on the state level.
“If you’re going into unchartered territory, you have to do it one step at a time,” Janda said. “It seems reasonable to do it with congressional races.”
Sirota said he hopes his book will inspire more people to become involved in local politics.
“Citizens need to focus political action more locally,” he said. “The media environment makes people feel like the White House and Congress are more important than state and local government.”
But the book also describes politicians who help bring integrity to the system, Sirota said.
“I hope it leaves people with hope because there are stories about heroes within the system who are fighting the corruption,” Sirota said.
Reach Ketul Patel at [email protected].
