I admit I haven’t done a lot of research on the topic, but if any of you out there support public financing of elections (aka “clean elections”) — convince me why. I understand the overall idea of getting “big money” out of politics but my kneejerk reaction is to say that I’d rather have corporate money as an influencer than have my tax dollars go to George W. Bush, for instance.
Well for one non-corporatist candidates can enter the race. All federal candidates have to be “corporate approved” right now before they are even available to be elected.
As far as the tax money, I think its a trade-off. Whatever corporate pays in campaign contributions they expect to get back 100x in tax breaks. Guess who pays the difference?
If there is a clean elections law, there cannot be a provision to “opt out”- all candidates must work under the public system. Otherwise publically funded candidates will lose to candidates funded privately.
Don’t know about the constitutionality though, but it seems to work in Maine and Vermont (?)
“Big Money” isn’t just going to go away. If it doesn’t go directly to the candidate or party, it’s going to gravitate to the 527’s and other less-regulated areas. All in all, the unintended consequences seriously outweigh any potential benefit of the system.
Want the Swift Boat guys to be better funded? “Clean” elections are the way to get there.
I think it could work. It tends to level the playing field and take some of the money out of politics(obviously it’s impossible to remove all such influence).
It probably would need to be accompanied by some kind of version of the Fairness Doctrine, so media would really give equal time to competing opinions.
And GWB got public money already, in the 2004 general election campaign.
Oliver – this is a tough question. I’ve changed my mind on public financing of elections – I now support it. Currently there are three types of finance systems:
1. unregulated: in some states any US citizen is allowed to give as much as they want to any candidate. This has problems – if a candidate gets large amounts on money from a single person (or group), that person likely has undue influence on them, even if that person is giving just because they are friends with the candidate. In state elections, you also have the problem of large amounts of out-of-state, corporate-linked money flowing in to control an election, like what happened in the VA Atty. Gen race in 2005 (and likely swung the election to the Republican, Bob McDonnell).
2. Semi-regulated: this is how fedral elections are financed, where any citizen (or permanent resident) can give, but they are limited to a large, but not too large, amount (currently $2,300/election). There are two problems with this. First, a candidate spends most of their time raising money and not actually talking to real people about their problems. That leads to public officials getting out of touch with the electorate (Barack Obama worries about this in his latest book). It also leads to the rich having undue influence – how many of us have $2300 to give to a candidate?
3. Public financing: some states (ME, VT) have public financing, where if you get a certain number of people to donate a nominal amount to your campaign (like $5), then you can get public money for your campaign. This is better because candidates spend more time talking to and are more accountable to normal (non-rich) people, both during their campaigns and after they are elected. Our elected officials spend so much time raising money that they lose touch with what we want and need. Public financing helps politicians spend more time with and listen more to their constituents.
(1) As Toby Zeigler says in The West Wing: “Tawny, you’d need the Budweiser Clydesdales to drag my ass to Picasso and Monet! I’m not the
guy you want deciding this! And you’re not the guy I want deciding this! And I don’t know where you get the idea that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for anything of which they disapprove. Lots of ‘em don’t like tanks. Even more don’t like Congress.”. Your tax dollars probably allready go to plenty of stuff you vociferously disapprove of. Likewise Instahack, even if he didn’t oppose it on principle, would not want to give money to anyone to the left of Ben Nelson. The important thing is whether you think public financing will reduce the likelihood Congress will fund ineffective parochial interests (like New Mexico supporting nuclear warhead replacement or whatnot) over broader national interests (like universal health care). And I admit the answer there is unclear. Obviously it won’t get rid of it, but on balance I think it’s a good idea.
(2) Officials spend a huge chunk of time raising money. Anything done to reduce this will help free up resources for Congressmen to actually learn something, attend committee meetings, and so forth.
(3) Politics is a zero-sum game, so anything that reduces the influence of the elite increases the influence of everybody else. Now, maybe our political system plus things like labor and other advocacy groups force politicians to pay enoughattention to the needs of the everyday person-on-the-street, but maybe not.
Of course the devil is in the details. You could design a publicly financed system that basically operated like an incumbent protection racket, which would stink. You could design it such that it was total chaos, which wouldn’t be much better. Or you could get something in between, which might be quite good.
How about the fact that you wouldn’t have 100 million dollar primary campaigns that last a year and a half. How about the fact that Senators and Congressman could use the time saved from constant fundraising to spend more time reading the bills they vote on and spending time in their states and districts. How about the fact that Congress people could hire more staff concerned with expertise on issues instead of campaign work. How about the real possibility of getting a tax system that would put more of YOUR money in YOUR pocket instead of the unduly well off, more money than you would be contributing to campaigns. How about lobbyists having to actually lobby the merits of issues rather than the financial benefits of spreading their congressional cheeks.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. With public financing, you might not have any George Bush’s on the November ballot. It would change the pool of candidates.
How about:
1. Limiting the campaign season to the six months leading up to the election. Candidates could neither declare nor campaign before the window opens.
2. Provide each campaign with a sum of money, say two million dollars and limit campaign spending strictly to that. No opting out for wealthy candidates. If they want to provide the two million from their own funds then good for them.
A candidate would be considered to have a viable campaign when he or she presents petitions signed by 5% of his or her state’s registered voters endorsing the candidate.
3. 527’s are welcome to produce all of the advocacy ads they want (Within the six month window.) but they must also pay for an equal amount of ads in the same media markets espousing the opposing view.
4. Television and radio outlets to provide each candidate with equal blocks of time as a public service. If cable news provides time to one candidate then it must provide equal time to all of the others.
Currently, broadcasters are making boatloads of money from the publicly owned airwaves. A one minute Public Service Announcement at two o’clock in the morning isn’t exactly giving it back.
Others have already brought up some great points; here’s one I’d like to make:
While I can certainly sympathize with not wanting my money to go to something like the Bush campaign, this would ensure that whoever’s running against Bush gets the same amount of money he does, no more and no less.
And, as others have already pointed out, we’ve already GOT tax dollars going to elections — both major party candidates always get tax dollars toward their campaigns. Even Pat Buchanan met the criteria for public financing back in ‘00.
And that’s just the campaigns. Your taxes go to George Bush’s agenda with every single paycheck and every single purchase now that he’s President, and he got where he is because of his corporate backers. It seems rather a moot point to me that you would object to spending tax dollars on his campaign when his corporate-aided victory ensures that your tax dollars are now going to his war.
Finally, my biggest beef with uncapped campaign contributions is the obvious fact that they give corporations — nonentities — more rights than citizens. The trouble with considering money as speech is that, by definition, it means people with more money have more free speech. It’s the clearest example I’ve ever seen of “Some are more equal than others.”
…By the way, I used that last one on my college roomie, who was President of the Campus Republicans. I think it gave him some food for thought.
“We funded your campaign. You will listen to us.”
Using this as a reference:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html
1) Repeal the 12th Amendment
2) Revisit the 17th Amendment
3) Revisit the 25th Amendment
4) Propose a 28th Amendment
The problem is multiple:
1. Legislators spend all their time campaigning for re-election, especially in the House.
2. Money talks. Those with big money like corporations and unions and the rich talk the loudest.
3. Lobbyists and special interests argue that their freedom of speech rights and freedom of petition rights are infringed by amy attempt at regulation.
ANSWERS:
1. Term changes: To 4 yrs in the House.
2. Term Limits: 3 terms for the House, 2 terms in the Senate.
3. Public funding, as Paul Begala wrote:
The incumbent is GUARANTEED in public funds whatever the challenger raises. Incumbent may not use his own funds nor accept any but the smallest campaign gifts nor contributions.
4. Money raised by 527’s, 503(c)’s, and all PAC’s on behalf of challengers, as well as challengers’ own funds are matched dollar-for-dollar out of a General Election fund and given to incumbent.
I don’t mean to pick on you Dennis: it’s just that your bullet points are a bit more focused and thus easier to debate with…
1. Limiting the campaign season to the six months leading up to the election.
As incumbents, current officeholders will be able to use the tools at their disposal to “campaign” without actually breaking laws. (Photo ops, Town Halls, etc.) Besides, we all know that candidates will be doing the same amount of fundraising, only telling their doners “Don’t send the check now. Send it in 12 months…”
3. 527’s are welcome to produce all of the advocacy ads they want (Within the six month window.) but they must also pay for an equal amount of ads in the same media markets espousing the opposing view.
You’ll NEVER get 527’s to go along with this. Plus, you’re forcing groups to spend ads to promote ideas they don’t agree with. It doesn’t sound like it passes the Constitutionality test.
4. Television and radio outlets to provide each candidate with equal blocks of time as a public service.
That’s a law on the books now. But media outlets get around it by calling it “news”, thus not subject to equal-time restrictions.
Wellstone and SaveFerris: My suggestions shouldn’t run into First Amendment objections, except when the issues are discussed. Yours most definitely will cobble the free election process.
The current Incumbent Preservation system insures that 90+ percent of congress critters stay in office as long as they want to. Public financing would at least level the playing field a little, so that perhaps a new candidate could be elected on the merits of their proposals rather than unfair advantages in fundraising that incumbency affords.
As it is, most members of congress have to be wealthy in order to be elected in the first place. Greater democratic choice, and having to be more responsive to ordinary citizens, not beholden to corporations: two good reasons for public financing.
SaveFarris, your counterpoints to mine are well taken. I don’t feel at all picked on.
I’m very much concerned about the eternal campaign cycle and the concomitant eternal money chase. This is a nice intellectual exercise but I doubt that the situation will change anytime soon. The business/political machine is so much invested in gaming the status quo that any system that removed the influence of campaign contributions from politics would be declared un-American by both parties.
I’m a volunteer coordinator for the California Clean Money Campaign. Let’s see if I can shed a little light on some of these questions:
1. As some have mentioned, our tax dollars already pay for all sorts of political speech we don’t agree with. That’s normal in a democracy that respects freedom of speech. The issue I submit is not whether some candidates we don’t agree with would recieve financing along with those we do agree with; the issue is whose interests are they going to represent if elected, which depends on where the money come from. If it comes from wealthy private groups and individuals, then they will have the lion’s share of the influence. If it comes from an impartial public source, then “we the people” will have the most influence. Clean Money is not about regulating or censoring any particular speech; it’s about expanding that freedom to all qualified candidates (not just the ones chosen by big money) and insuring the accountability of our public officials to voters instead of big donors, no matter what political party they’re from.
2. Public financing systems have to be voluntary in order to be Constitutional (Buckley v Valeo, 1976), but 527 groups and privately funded candidates who might try to outspend a “Clean Money” candidate can be and are very effectively neutralized by having what’s called “matching funds” or “fair fight funds” as part of the public financing system. Current systems operating successfully in Arizona and Maine for almost a decade have these provisions. What happens is that if a 527 or privately funded candidate tries to outspend a Clean Money candidate, the Clean Money candidate gets additional matching funds (up to a cap so we don’t break the bank), which does two things: it helps keep the playing field level so the Clean Money candidate can be competitive, and it discourages those 527’s and privately funded candidates from over spending (because they realize that every excess dollar they spend just triggers matching funds for their Clean Money opponent).
3. Public financing is incredibly inexpensive: about $6.00 a year per voter (a cup of coffee and a muffin) would finance all Congressional elections for both houses. That’s about 2 billion total. By contrast, the earmarks pushed through the Congress on behalf of the special interest groups who currently fund campaigns came to 64 billion in 2006 alone…to say nothing of what we spend on the most expensive special interest of all, the military-industrial complex (over 500 billion in 2006). Bottom line: Clean Money would save taxpayers 10’s if not hundreds of billions every year. We literally can’t aford not to do it
To sum up, Clean Money has already been tested and proven to work, it’s already been ruled constitutional, and it pays for itself many times over. (For additional non-partisan info see http://www.just6dollars.org or http://www.publicampaign.org or http://www.CAclean.org).
Money will always find a way to the campaigns. Somehow the influence of tv and radio advertising needs to be reduced. Regulations, equal time, magic? I don’t know.
Here in New Zealand we have public funding for elections and it works pretty well. I’ll see if I can hunt down a webpage that has a description of how it works. Not that there aren’t the occasional problems with it, but it’s much much better than the problems of corporate funding in America. We also use what we call MMP, mixed member proportional which is really great too. It’s neat to see what a little country can do when they’re not too tied to the way things used to be done and understands that democracy can be evolutionary.
How’s this, Michael?
http://www.elections.org.nz/
I don’t particularly care about money in campaigns. People get mixed up on this. Its your candidate’s vote that counts and not his money. A good vote is a good vote regardless. Same with a bad vote. Same old BS. People are so worried about motive that they ignore substance. The answer is to have a more responsible and better informed electorate and forget about infringing on people’s freedoms. Remember McCain Feingold was going to fix this. It didn’t. Teh next law won’t either.
How about freedom.
It’s not ALL about the money. It’s also about the perqs.
Why should get Senators and Congressmen get outrageous salaries for working less days than a school teacher?
Why should they get a 100% pension, no matter how many terms they serve?
Free medical care at Bethesda for life?
Make the job more like public service and less like instant celebrity, and you’ll see a different kind of person running for office, and a different kind of campaign.
Here are some rules:
Pension:
10% of your final pay, for each term you served.
Medical care: 10% free, for every term you have served,
Salary: The same as the national median for the member’s or President’s family size. When “the country gets a raise”, the Senator, congressman, or President gets a raise.
Being a politician shouldn’t entitle you to “giraffe money“
The Savings and Loan scandal cost taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars. The scandal was a direct result of industry campaign contributions to members of both parties.
The cost to taxpayers of the savings and loan scandal would be enough to publicly fund election campaigns for centuries.
Apropos of nothing, I give you the Dream Team of 2012.
When you donate $20 to a politician for a political campaign, you are showing your support. When the local business magnate donates $2000, he is buying the right to come back later and ask for a favour.
Public financing can help reduce the favour buying. Not completely, but it helps. It also makes it more likely that a small candidate can run and have a chance.
Part of the reason why elections are so expensive is the advertising. Pass a law that requires N hours of prime time TV, or N pages in the local newspaper, to be made available free of charge to each candidate/party in an area during the declared campaign season and most of the reasons for huge amounts of money goes away.
The current debate in congress on the energy bill is a perfect example of why we’re never going to change squat in Washington until elections are free of undue corporate influence.
From Arianna Huffington’s column today: “[r]aising CAFE standards should be a no-brainer. It’s the fastest and most efficient way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But automakers are fighting progress tooth and nail. And they are getting help from a group of lawmakers that includes Michigan’s two Democratic Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, who are giving in to the lobbyists and special interests that have defined Washington for decades.”
Kinda says it all, for me.
Believe it or not, all lobbyists are not mega – corporate vipers, and all their communication is not via brown bags of cash. Money is not a carrier of evil.
The ability to be influenced by cash is in the heart and soul of the Congressman, not the bills in the sack.
The job must be more of a public service job, and less of a ticket to paradise.
Suspicion of bribery or corruption leads to an instant opportunity to resign, losing all benefits. If you don’t take that opportunity than you run the risk of the full weight of the law.
Thank you all for actually responding and (mostly) not just fighting. I don’t necessarily think I’m sold on the issue – I think that it’s a little farfetched and an expenditure of gov’t resources that’s not needed – but I know more now.
This is definitely a good argument, and one that deserves the time. While I don’t have much to add in the large scope of how public financing would affect 527s or the tax base, I can say one area of politics that would be forced to comply with a fairer system, and that’s the media. Many forget that when the FCC was created, there was a deal made with the major networks to allot time for public campaigns and elections. This time has basically been melded into news spots and is still used for advertisements and therefore is ultimately dictated by corporate money. How long a debate will run or how often political ads are shown is all ruled by advert money on the networks side. If campaigns were funded publicly, we’d most likely have to readopt the old standard and set definite time slots for no purpose but campaigns and elections. Debates held in this forum would not be shortened by commercials. Candidates would be given equal time regardless of party or financial status.
While I agree that more government isn’t necessarily better gov’t, we need to start appreciating that there are some things a federal gov’t can do really well and this might be one of them. However, it would be beneficial first to remove several of the services that gov’t doesn’t do very well to make up for budget increases that would certainly be necessary to finance campaigns. Still though, on the media side, I think a lot of graft could be removed from that side of it were the gov’t to just reimpose it’s earlier agreements with the networks.
Here’s my 2 cents worth. A few benefits of clean campaign legislation are:
-It would lower the barrier to entry for anyone considering a political career, that means you. Yes, you!
-Legislators would have more time to dedicate to their jobs, legislating, rather than following the PAC.
-It would depress the political fundraising industry and assorted barnicles on the ship of state.
-Politicians need to stop hob-nobbing with people who can afford to drop $500 plus on lunch with a photo op; most of their constituents can’t even buy their month’s groceries for that amount.
-A side benefit could be the price of skyboxes at sporting events could plunge to the level of reasonable.
-Yet another effect could be that poiticians chase votes instead of money, but hey, that’s pie-in-the-sky shit…
It comes down to how the rules are written. For sure, history teaches us that human ingenuity will find a loophole and exploit it. Because, in my view, the world’s oldest occupation is politician.