If you don’t want to miss a single Mackie’s Plog post because of the
tangy, creamy deliciousness in each bite, sign up to get email
notifications of future plog posts by typing your email into the box in
the right hand corner of this page (in a desktop version.)
Here I am, once again taking the “long and boring” out of important books that affect our lives today by plogging for joy!
Trump’s and Sanders’ unexpected success in the March 1st, 2016 primaries was an anti-establishment cry from the American people. Americans feel powerless to change a system that does not deliver results for the average person. Campaign finance reform is a perfect example of an area of politics in which the average person’s desires are not being met.
An ABC–Washington Post poll conducted in 2010 showed that 80% of those surveyed opposed the idea that “corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections.” The influence of lobbyists and special interests strikes deep in the hearts of American citizens yet in 2010 a case brought to the Supreme Court by Citizens United ruled that there would be no limits on what corporations could spend to influence campaigns. Obama stated the decision “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington” and “strikes at our democracy itself.” The ruling sounds wildly off base and caused quite a stir in the media. I wanted to understand the intellectual rationale behind such a seemingly counter-intuitive decision by the Supreme Court. In 2010 The New York Times called Bradley A. Smith the “intellectual powerhouse” behind the movement to deregulate campaign finance. In this post I will review his book, which makes the intellectual case for the ruling (or for deregulation.) The book is called Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform and was published in 2001. Fully versed on the subject and its legal history, Smith served as Commissioner, Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Federal Election Commission between 2000 and 2005 and is a veritable industry insider. He is currently a professor at Capital University Law School. I will then review a study that combines the results of multiple studies done on the effect that campaign contributions have on voting in Congress. Finally I will summarize the Supreme Court judges’ statements on the Citizens United ruling and the public reaction to the ruling from commentators on both sides.
The contention over campaign finance law exemplifies the difficulties of government intervention. We know that while regulation has become more stringent in the last half century, we have seen decreased competitiveness in elections. The more competitive our elections are the more accountable elected officials will be for their actions. About 95 percent of elected officials that ran for office again were re-elected in 2014 yet 86 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress. What is not clear is why reform has not had a positive impact on these crucial statistics. That’s because there are a number of conflicting issues in the area of campaign finance reform and those issues are what I intend to shed some light on in this post.
Smith’s book is clearly presented and densely packed with history and citations of studies and case law. Also, his desired ends appear to be the same as those of the reformist movement. He believes that his prescription will allow us to arrive at a more competitive and democratic system. The only criticism I have is that Smith seems like he is more intent on selling his case than he is on giving an unbiased view of both sides. My favorite type of author gives me the feeling that he or she is determined to arrive at as good a characterization of reality as they can muster. This shortcoming makes me suspicious as to whether I should swallow the overall thrust of Smith’s case. But since his argument is quite solid and well researched a layperson like myself comes to a bit of a dead end as to what the correct solution to the matter is. That’s because I could not find an intellectual rebuttal to Smith’s case in any publication and since the matters Smith deals with are technical and require the knowledge of an industry insider I cannot rebut his points myself. I get the feeling that intellectuals have been trying to sweep this book under the rug in the hopes that if they do not give it any attention it will eventually be forgotten. Clearly that strategy has not worked. If a majority of the Supreme Court judges were intellectually captured by the merits of Smith’s case to the extent that they have taken control of the law itself, as was seen in the game-changing Citizens United ruling, then those merits can no longer be ignored.
Bradley A. Smith. Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform
Smith opens the book with a series of anecdotes showing the ostensible results of campaign finance reform and how the laws tend to be targeted towards the grassroots activists that the constitution sought to protect. Here are just two of the examples he cited.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA,) passed in 1971 was the toughest campaign finance regulation the United States had ever seen. On May 31, 1972 a group of lawyers, a Senator, a law professor and others paid $17,850 to publish an advertisement asking for Richard Nixon to be impeached. The US Department of Justice sued the group in the first enforcement action ever bought under FECA. “For the first time in history, Congress had passed a law requiring citizens to register with the government in order to criticize its office holders.”
On April 27, 1988 Margaret McIntyre passed out handbills outside a school in Ohio in protest against a school tax-hike. The handbills criticized wasteful practices of the school board and broken promises made before the last tax-hike. An assistant superintendent of the school district J. Michael Hayfield filed charges against McIntyre for violating the Ohio elections code by distributing “anonymous” campaign literature and she was charged, found guilty and fined.
Shortly before finishing the book, Smith was nominated to a seat on the Federal Election Commission. He states, “Life on the FEC can be summed up as follows: We see many complaints, [some are violations of FECA, some are not].. but virtually none have anything to do with special interest influence or the prevention of corruption.”
I will briefly summarize Smith’s history of campaign finance law in this country
The first campaign financing legislation was passed in 1907. Smith argues that in the first half of the 1900s the several laws that were passed to ban corporate contributions, require disclosure and limit house and senate race amounts were largely ineffective since there was no enforcement provision which meant the laws were circumvented. In 1943 after a wartime strike, laws were temporarily put in place banning contributions from unions only during wartime to protect the war effort. It was then that the first Political Action Commitees (PACs) were formed by unions to circumvent the ban. Decades later in the transformative FECA act of 1971, unions lobbied to sanction the use of PACs and during the bargaining, the use of PACs was extended to corporations. Ironically the now vilified PACs were first created by unions and the FECA reforms increased and institutionalized corporate political activity.
Political spending, which was dampened by the Great Depression and World War II took decades to ramp up. 1948 spending was the lowest since 1880, $140 million was spent on the 2 year election cycle leading up to the 1952 presidential election, $200 million was spent leading up to the 1964 election, $540 mill was spent leading up to the 1976 election. In 1971 the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) was passed. It closed loopholes by putting penalties in place for non-disclosure.
Shortly after FECA the Watergate scandals of 1972 – 1974 broke. Throughout this book Smith tries to convince the reader that we do not need reform because enforceable disclosure is enough. He argues that Watergate proved that revelations caused by enforceable disclosure, and the public reaction to those revelations, showed that on its own disclosure is an adequate deterrent. Watergate allowed the reform lobby to push for tighter reforms in 1974 amendments. Between the 1971 and 1974 changes, enforceable disclosure, public campaign financing, spending and contribution limits were the new regime. These are the four cornerstones of what is thought to be a sound system. Thus by 1974 a great part of the battle for campaign finance reform had been won.
This reform was immediately challenged in court by Senator James Buckley et. al. exemplifying a very problematic part of the American political system. In parliamentary systems throughout most of Europe the courts cannot overrule legislation that has been decided by parliament. Here in the US a bill that has been passed by the two chambers of Congress, The House and The Senate, can be overturned by a majority of the 9 Supreme Court judges. In other words it only takes 5 judges to overturn a bill that has been scrutinized by hundreds of Senators and Representatives.
In the Buckley ruling of 1976, the court threw out the restriction on spending on the basis that in the act of spending an official is not being bribed. The court upheld limits on contributions. This created a central tension. Spending was unlimited so donors just had to find a way to contribute that circumvented the rules and they have since found a number of ways to do that.
This book was published in 2001. Smith wrote an updated preface in Sept 2002 by which time the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BRCA) of 2002 had been passed. According to Smith BRCA was very far reaching legislation. BRCA fueled the “Citizen’s United” suit which was mainly brought about to fight BRCA §203. He states that among the scandals that were used to fuel the passage of BRCA two “stand out,” those of Enron and the Clintons. He explains in detail why the wrongdoings of the Clintons and their personal friends who sought and received pardons in the closing hours of Clinton’s administration were, in their majority, related to gifts and actions which would not be banned under BRCA. He argues that Enron’s campaign contributions brought the company “no assistance in court.”
Those are the main points regarding campaign finance law history. Here are the saliencies of Smith’s intellectual case against campaign finance reform.
Limiting contributions - the unwanted effects on campaigns
According to Smith, overall our effort to reform the system has had a number of unintended consequences that are “undemocratic.” Contribution limits have entrenched the status quo and favored incumbents. That’s because the need to raise a lot of money from lots of contributors benefits those who have a database of past contributors. Incumbents start with name recognition, are able to attract press coverage, receive assistance from their staff and have the privilege of free postage when mailing constituents! These perks have been estimated to add up to several hundred thousand dollars. The way to help any potential candidate with good ideas is to make it easier for political newcomers to raise money and that usually means finding large contributors. Similarly, putting caps on spending merely concentrates political power with those who do not need to spend as much i.e. those who already have name recognition. Smith believes that limiting spending may also have the unintended consequence of increasing voter ignorance, as candidates are being limited in what they can spend to reach constituents with their message. It has also strengthened the power of the wealthy and upper middle class because it works against candidates who represent the interests of the working class and who have historically relied on wealthy sympathizers since their constituents cannot afford to donate. Keeping contributions low has had the added negative effect of diverting the attention of the elected official away from official duties. The contribution limit of $1000 has not been adjusted for inflation since 1974!! Finally Smith makes the point that we should not be so worried about large donors contributing to campaigns because elected officials need votes not dollars. Dollars only help by getting an official’s agenda heard. If the agenda is not what the public want to hear it won’t translate into votes.
The Buckley decision held that congress could not limit the amount a candidate spends on his or her own campaign. Because of this the millionaire candidate phenomenon has been renewed. Smith argues that limits on contributions have made debates void of substance, as politicians do not wish to alienate a broad donor base. He states, “It is no surprise that in the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, the candidates who seemed most determined to discuss substantive issues were Ross Perot and Steve Forbes, self-funded multimillionaires.”
Money – The easiest way for the average citizen to contribute
Smith argues that spending money is only one of the ways to influence the public and that retracting it only puts those with other ways to wield political influence at an advantage. Having access to the press via stardom or because you control the media are examples. There is no good reason why actors and journalists should have more access to influencing voters than a wealthy entrepreneur especially since persons of influence do not represent the average American. Smith argues that people “of wealth” are more representative of the American public. The average person is 8 times more likely to describe themselves as conservative than a journalist. “A recent study suggests that 30 million Americans could make a $1000 donation.” Yet 89 percent of Washington press corps reporters and bureau chiefs voted for Clinton in 1992 vs. 43 percent of the population and 80% of academics identify themselves as democrats. On the other hand 40 to 60% of contributions from corporate PACs give to Democratic Party candidates despite the belief that the Republican Party favors corporations. It should be no surprise that the wealthy are more homogenous. Due to the fluidity of wealth in American society many of the rich have been poor and or have poor friends and family. In fact money is a source for expanding political influence beyond a “narrow political caste.” “..we must realize monetary contributions are one of the most popular and egalitarian ways in which Americans participate in political campaigns.”
The unintended legal encumbrances of campaign finance reform
Campaign financing reform has created complex filing requirements has had the perverse effect of favoring those with money and expertise in the regulatory mechanics and legalities and has distanced the system from ordinary citizens and grassroots efforts. It has also had the unintended consequence of making litigation a campaign tactic.
Government financed campaigns
Smith actually suggests government financing as one of the best options we have. I find Smith’s posture here very redeeming since public funding is not the common plight of a conservative. He states that a system of government financing of political campaigns will probably also reduce administrative costs. As proof, he states that the FEC spends far less on administrating the “federal presidential campaign fund” (the government fund which currently finances presidential campaigns) than it does on enforcement, audits and disclosure of every other area of campaign financing. Overall government-financed campaigns could have the triple benefit of saving money, increasing competitiveness and preventing the need for candidates to waste time fundraising.
He outlines a way to go about it. From a technical standpoint courts have found that constitutionally, you cannot require candidates to take public funds and limit their spending. Thus government financing proposals must draw candidates into optional schemes of public financing and voluntary spending limits. This could be done if Americans could be persuaded to fund campaigns adequately from the public till. Smith’s anecdotes demonstrate that it is not beyond the ineptness of Congress to spend months passing a bill, which proves inadequate in terms of improving the system. The amount of money given for each type of race must be adjustable based on features like inflation or by using a measurement of the cost of enabling a new candidate to get their name and message out to a constituency. Smith argues that current campaign financing levels are not very high. At the time this book was published Smith claims that US political expenditures constituted just .05 percent of GDP. GDP was about $10 Trillion that year (taken from The World Bank’s website.) The budget was $1.8 trillion (taken from the budget issued by the Executive office of the President.) Thus US political expenditures were one four hundredth of the total Federal budget. Our author then asks us to take a different perspective. Apparently an analyst has calculated that to properly reach 300 million people there must be a presidential campaign expenditure of $600 million. The amounts he suggested to adequately fund campaigns were: $30 mill for the general nomination of a major party Senate nominee in California, $8 million for a Senate nominee in Ohio and $2 million or more for a house nominee in any district. Since in the 1997 to 1998 election cycle only 39 house candidates took in over $1.5 million, most candidates would probably accept the government subsidy. That would then be conditional on a spending limit. In a study of Wisconsin’s system by Mayer and Wood they argued, “a well-designed and adequately funded public finance program can dramatically increase competition levels.” The biggest problem is that this solution is dependent on the government adequately funding campaigns. According to Smith “There is no hint of a political will to dramatically expand the levels of tax financing.” It is too easily labeled as “welfare for politicians.” A second problem is that government spending means challengers will never be able to spend more than an incumbent and challengers that outspend an incumbent are the ones that are usually able to win. The chances of success in getting adequately funded government financed campaigns through are slim. Furthermore the presidential race which is now 100% government financed is an example of the potential result of such a system. Smith thinks that due to publicly financing the Presidential race, soft money (a loophole from a 1978 FEC ruling) has becoming a widely used tactic. An example of this was the $33 million that came from “corporate sponsorship” to pay for Republican and Democratic national conventions in 1996, labeled as such to circumvent spending limits. Smith says because the government spends $1.5 Trillion a year and regulates numerous industries, those industries are likely to find loopholes however draconian the system. Thus, government funding might help, but not unless reform groups raise the current limits seen on contributions and spending so that politicians don't feel the need to raise money elsewhere, and none of the reform groups are considering a government-funding proposal without these caps.
Incumbents manipulate laws to protect their seats
Incumbents who seek to protect their seats will always manipulate new laws. To demonstrate this, when Congress debated spending caps in 1997 the bills establishing those caps were set at levels which made it impossible for challengers to be competitive. “Only 3 percent of challengers spending below the proposed limit for House races had won in 1996 whereas 40% of challengers spending more than that limit had won.” In other words Congress was seriously debating a bill which, based on the previous year’s election, would give challengers a 3% chance of winning!! Another problem with the system is it is structured so Republicans and Democrats have the same amount of money, and more than any other party’s nominee. The result is a system that is rigged to favor major party nominees.
Constitutional arguments
Let me make a simple note here regarding why the First Amendment comes up when we talk about money in politics. The First Amendment protects the rights the people and the press have to free speech. In US courts money and speech have been equated because “all communication in modern society requires at least some expenditure of money.”
Smith discusses at length the constitutional arguments made by different courts that affect this field of study. I read it all and I found the arguments to be relatively unimportant and overly focused on semantics. I am concerned with pragmatic policy that suits our time. The constitution is arguably well composed. However, it was written over 200 years ago at a time when people lived under an enormously different set of circumstances than we do today. At that time the population was under 4 million and there were only 13 states. Our population is almost 100 times larger, substantially more enfranchised, better educated and well informed. Our standards of living are much improved. Simply put, life is entirely different.
Nevertheless I will mention one point Smith makes which strikes me as notable. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” Since First Amendment rights are fundamental rights, if government regulation burdens those rights it is subject to “strict scrutiny” and must be “narrowly tailored” to the least restricted means. FECAs disclosure laws are a less restrictive means than FECAs spending and contribution limits. Smith argues that enforceable disclosure alone is a sufficient means of preventing corruption whilst minimally encumbering First Amendment rights.
Regulation has been fraught with the need to create endless distinctions
Over the past two decades [as of the time the book was first published in 2001] the Supreme Court has attempted to distinguish between the right of the individual to spend unlimited sums on his own campaign and contributing unlimited amounts to the campaigns of others. It has distinguished between spending on campaigns, which are limited, and spending on ballot issues, which may not be. It has tried to distinguish between expenditures by media corporations, which are not limited, and expenditures by non-media corporations, which are. The courts allowed large donations to offset party expenses that have now been dubbed “soft money” and have been vilified. They allowed political parties to spend on polling, get-out-the-vote drives and generic advertising in 1979 in order to strengthen the parties and such spending is now considered a “loophole.” Proposals to ban bundling, to reduce contributions outside a representative’s district and to put limits on “issue ads” have all been attempted. Smith draws our attention to the opening words to the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law..” which is explicitly calling for no government interference in speech and yet the courts find themselves imposing “ever-increasing restrictions on speech.”
The future of campaign finance reform
Smith finds it notable that reform groups often talk about a corrupt system without specifying the corrupt persons or pointing to specific events.
He explains that campaign spending has risen for very understandable reasons. One of the main reasons is growth in the electorate that has grown much faster than the population. Women were enfranchised in 1920, eighteen year olds were given the right to vote in 1971 and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 successfully enfranchised more black voters in the south. The electorate greatly expanded during this period until the early 70s. Smith makes the incredibly compelling point that spending on a per voter basis has hovered around $2.50 to $3.50 since the early 70s and remains lower than several democracies including ones much poorer than the US like Venezuela, Italy and Israel. Another factor that has led to increased spending since the beginning of the 19th century is the new style of campaigning which has given voters much more direct exposure to candidates. Mass media forms of communication like radio and television have driven costs higher.
But, Smith argues, the single biggest reason spending on campaigns had gone up is that government size has gone up. While the government spends $1.8 trillion and controls areas from health to farmland use, contributions will find their way into the system through one loophole or another. Smith argues that campaign finance reform has grown with the size of government that had growth spurts at the end of the nineteenth century and implemented the great society programs of the 1960s. Smith believes the only time special interests will stop spending will be when they do not want to spend any more.
“At work here is a fundamental failure to analyze correctly the workings of politics. It is simply wrong to assume that eliminating money as a form of influence will, in some way, increase the influence of an average citizen.”
“..solutions imposed have made the problems worse. Campaign finance regulation has helped to insulate incumbents, hindered grassroots political activity, infringed on free speech and made campaigns longer and devoid of content.”
Can it be true that we are doing more harm than good when we regulate campaign contributions? Smith’s argument is not entirely preposterous.
______
“A Meta-Analysis of Campaign Contributions’ Impact on Roll Call Voting” by Douglas D. Roscoe and Shannon Jenkins, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, published 2005.
Congress consists of two chambers, the Senate and the House. A roll call is the name given to a vote on a bill and it happens in both of these chambers of Congress. In his book Smith explicitly states, “It has been shown that campaign contributions play little role in floor voting.” I am adding commentary on the above study to refute that statement. Many academics have tried to argue that research has failed to establish a significant relationship between contributions and roll call votes and this has become somewhat of a conventional wisdom. However, the above paper written by Roscoe and Jenkins gathered data on a comprehensive number of studies comparing contributions to roll calls. It combined the results of all studies (and importantly compared the calculations used in each study which is called meta-analysis) and concluded that one-third of roll call votes exhibit the impact of campaign contributions. What is perhaps of most concern here is that in general, all the studies controlled for (in other words ignored) contributions that were given to legislators that shared the donor’s ideology. That means legislators were found to vote against their own ideals because they had received a financial contribution one third of the time! Furthermore, contributions given to legislators that share the donor’s ideology should not be ignored. If a corporation can line the pockets of an incumbent that shares its ideology that incumbent will be tougher to beat.
Citizens’ United
(Extracts taken from Wikipedia)
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is a U.S. constitutional law case dealing with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations. It was decided in 2010 and was won by a narrow 5 to 4 majority of Supreme Court judges. By allowing unlimited election spending by individuals and corporations, the decision has “re-shaped the political landscape” of the United States.
The term “the majority” means the five judges that voted in favor of the case. The dissent consists of the remaining 4 judges.
Notable extracts from author of the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy’s argument:
In its opinion the majority states, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.” The majority then goes on to use this to justify that the BCRA §203 prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The majority argues that corporations are associations of people. Well, no. Corporations are the property of people and are much like any other income producing investment such as a building. It is absurd to grant fundamental rights of self-expression to a piece of property. The majority opinion goes on to say “..the First Amendment does not distinguish between media and other corporations..” Well, that’s simply wrong. The First Amendment explicitly mentions “the press” and does not mention corporations. Therefore it clearly distinguishes the media (the press,) from corporations or from anything else you would like to mention, such as artichokes, which, like corporations are also omitted. The majority opinion goes on to say “[the restrictions on corporations' speech] would allow Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, books, television, and blogs.” Well, no. That would be silly. Restrictions on corporations’ speech (or that of any other object omitted from the First Amendment, like an artichoke) would not affect the rights explicitly granted to “the press” by the First Amendment.
Then the majority argues that granting First Amendment protections to media corporations but not other [corporations] presents a host of problems. Ok. This is a (only slightly) more grounded argument. The problem suggested by the judge no doubt refers to the fact that limiting corporate political participation has the unintended consequence of making the voice of the media more powerful. A biased media is an intractable problem which may need to be addressed. But the idea of allowing both evils (a biased media and corporations) to sway elections for the sole purpose of not making one evil stronger is, in isolation, not a good basis.
In what I have extracted here from his comments, in complete fairness Judge Kennedy has presented a load of rubbish. Just being blunt. Sorry.
Notable extracts from author of the dissenting opinion, Justice Steven’s argument:
Stevens argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation." "The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
“Stevens argued that the unique qualities of corporations and other artificial legal entities made them dangerous to democratic elections. These legal entities, he argued, have perpetual life, the ability to amass large sums of money, limited liability, no ability to vote, no morality, no purpose outside profit making, and no loyalty. Therefore, he argued, the courts should permit legislatures to regulate corporate participation in the political process.” “The First Amendment, he argued, protects individual self-expression, self-realization and the communication of ideas. Corporate spending is the “furthest from the core of political expression””
“Stevens argued that corporations “unfairly influence” the electoral process with vast sums of money that few individuals can match, which distorts the public debate. Because a typical voter can only absorb so much information during a relevant election period, Stevens described “unfair corporate influence” as the potential to outspend others, to push others out of prime broadcasting spots and to dominate the “marketplace of ideas””
Steven’s closing statement:
“At bottom, the Court’s [decision] is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”
Support:
Several voices in support of campaign financing state that from a practical perspective regulating corporate money has only served to protect incumbents and make elections less competitive.
Some other interesting notes from supporters are:
Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA, stated that the “most influential actors in most political campaigns” are media corporations, which “overtly editorialize for and against candidates, and also influence elections by choosing what to cover and how to cover it.” “Holding that corporations like Exxon would fear alienating voters by supporting candidates, the decision really meant that voters would hear “more messages from more sources.”"
Criticism:
In September 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders said that “the foundations of American Democracy are being undermined” and called for sweeping campaign finance reform.
The New York Times stated in an editorial, “The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election.”
Constitutional law scholar Laurence H. Tribe states [there is a] very real injustice and distortion entailed in the phenomenon of some people using [shareholders’] money to support candidates the shareholders have made no decision to support, or to oppose candidates they have made no decision to oppose.”
Conclusion
Without meaningful competitiveness in elections incumbents are not incentivized to act for the benefit of American citizens. This is a baseline issue in American politics. If you read my last plog post you will remember that notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff called for an introduction of term limits so that elected officials do not develop long standing relationships with lobbyists. His notable experience influencing elected officials on behalf of special interests has led him to believe that re-electing an incumbent time and time again was corrupting to the political process.
After a century of experience with campaign finance reform we find the field of seasoned Supreme Court judges split between those that think that regulation is bad and those that think we must regulate. That is because the intellectual case for each side is plausible. Maybe it’s time to realize that both sides may be right. If we do not regulate, then the message can become saturated by forces that seek to change the system to serve special interests over the interests of the average citizen. If we do regulate, then we make the situation worse by concentrating political power in even fewer hands and we experience the unintended effect of reducing competitiveness which in turn reduces accountability among elected officials. Maybe we will never succeed in improving the system until we adequately fund elections publicly. As you can see, Smith’s rhetoric reverberates through the opinion of all those in favor of deregulation. If Smith, the intellectual bastion of the conservative movement, suggests this as a solution and on the liberal side there is plenty of support too, then decades of experience with campaign finance reform may have unified both sides in this respect. Perhaps it is time to realize that until we adequately fund elections publicly we will not improve the statistics regarding incumbent re-election rates, we will not reduce the effect contributions have on roll calls and we will not change the fact that candidates spend far too much of their time raising money instead of doing their job. Perhaps, whether we do so immediately or down the line, we must accept that the current ongoing battle between each side to regulate and deregulate necessitating seemingly endless litigation, involving a minutiae of distinctions and a never ending closure of loopholes will never come to improve these crucial aspects of our political system. According to Smith, In 2001 US political expenditures constituted just 0.25 percent of the United States' federal budget. If campaigns only cost one four hundredth of the total federal budget, that is a very small price to pay to ensure our elected officials are not allocating the budget in the wrong way for the wrong reasons. We don’t know for sure whether Smith and all the other experts that believe government funding may improve things, are right. What we do know is that after 45 years of enforceable reform measures there has been no physical improvement in key statistics. It would seem sensible to try a different course to test whether these “pro-public funding” experts are right. Scientists can pontificate about this and about that but in the end they must do experiments and the data must yield results, for their theories to have any meaning in the real world.
In Obama’s final State of the Union address in January 2016 he mentioned three things he would change about America’s political system. When the most important man in politics mentions the top three things he wants to change, you listen. One of these things was to reduce the influence money has on politicians. He said he hates raising money and he thinks most politicians do.
Another item on Obama’s short list was gerrymandering. Right now Senators can change the borders of their district to include constituents that are likely to vote for them. I can’t think of one good reason to continue to allow that. It needs to stop.
In my next post I will be covering a book by Francis Fukuyama, published in 2015 called Political Order and Political Decay. This book clearly explains the problems with America’s political system, what makes it different from most western systems and why it means that Congress can’t get anything done. In the meantime I am working hard to build and deliver the tech platform I have been promising, which has the potential to help in all these areas by creating a system outside the system, a unifying force. Stay tuned to follow this exciting journey!
I am Cecilia Mackie, MPhys and I worked on Wall Street for 10 years where I rose to an executive level. The owners of a firm I worked at are now in jail. Because of this experience I have avidly researched corruption based issues over the last few years. Outside of this plog, I am building a tech platform which will allow people to participate in a community for political change. The platform will have a mechanism to allow our community to enact change within the world of American politics.
Please go to www.mackiemusic.com to access my social media pages and learn more about my polymathematical world of wonder!
