Here is Ed Lopez’s survey article, here is the survey from Thomas Stratmann. Overall the academics who work on this issue tend to see the practical ramifications of campaign finance restrictions as very often constituting less than meets the eye. It’s also well understood that most campaign finance reform benefits incumbents, who already have name recognition.
The pointer is from Ed Lopez, who notes:
Consider two ratios.
1. In 2000 the federal government spent about 1.8 trillion (~18% of
GDP), and total campaign expenditures on all federal elective offices
was about $1.85 billion (about $1b on congressional races, $0.35b on
presidential, and $0.5b in soft money). So federal public sector
advertising was 1/1000th of federal public spending. Ratio 1 = 0.001.2. In 2000 the private sector share of GDP was about $7.5 trillion
(after federal, state and local spending net of intergovernmental
transfers), and total private sector advertising, according to
Advertising Age, was $240 billion (Statistical Abstract Table 1251). So private advertising was 3.2% of private spending. Ratio 2 = .032.By this comparison, private sector advertising is more than thirty times greater
than the amount we spend on federal elections trying to make sure we
get the right person for the job. Given how much we expect from our
federal government, isn’t it surprising that campaign spending isn’t
twice, or even ten times, more than it is right now?
Ed thinks that campaigns need more money flowing through them, not less; I don’t have a personal view on this issue. Reihan Salam offers interesting comment on recent controversies surrounding Barack Obama.
The point isn’t whether too much or too little money is spent on campaigns, it is the fact that large campaign contributors (wealthy individuals and “bundlers”) have a disproportionate influence on who can be a viable candidate, on who wins, and therefore on what policies are adopted and decisions made by office-holders.
We need to create a voluntary system of mostly publicly-funded campaigns (primary and general election) that is sufficiently attractive that no candidate will choose to opt out (i.e., there will be no fundraising and spending advantage to opting out). It will be the best financial investment taxpayers have ever made, resulting in great savings for taxpayers and consumers as the payback for big-money campaign contributions (subsidies, special tax breaks, import quotas/tariffs, earmarks, etc.) is eliminated. And it will bring our democracy much closer to de facto “one person, one vote”.
Brooks is surely right that the issue is that it’s undemocratic to finance campaigns in this way. There might well be some link between the contributions you get and the support you have but the opportunity the wealthy have to distort debate and the moral worth of candidates who are ready to be bought make the system itself a farce.
In Finland the major candidates for the presidency (and even some minor ones) have to go through no fewer than nine televised debates and there are no silly rules either. That’s democracy.
Brook’s numbers are silly. While he’s correct to commonsize the figures he’s using against the corresponding federal / public expenditures, he’s comparing one product from the public sector against the entire range of products in the private sector. Should we be spending a share 32 times as large on advertising for soda, toothbrushes, cars and the rest as we spend on the presidential election? You look at it that way and, golly gosh, maybe we’re overspending on the election.
However, I imagine I put much less stress on the impact of who actually wins individual elections than Brook’s does.
Indeed, I was referring to those quoted from lopez. I guess I slipped Freudian-style in typing that up. My apologies.
Yancey,
What do you think of my idea, a VOLUNTARY system of public financing of campaigns?
Brooks is wrong. James Madison solved this problem long ago when he wrote Federalist No 10: donations and lobby efforts will all cancel out in the end so long as no restrictions are placed on factions. So the problem isn’t too much spending by donors; the problem is that it’s too little. Campaign finance laws only make the problem worse by creating a wasteful evolutionary arms race btw the reformers and the donors
Brooks,
I went back and read your first comment again. Your system is not voluntary. You proposed use taxes to fund the campaign spending pool. Your system might be voluntary for the candidates who draw from it, but not for those who are forced to contribute to it.
PerfectlyGoodInk,
Fine, then pass a constitutional amendment that states that the government may restrict the speech of those more capable of exercising it.
I have no problems with laws against bribery of public officials, but those laws should apply to money given and taken for personal enrichment. If the donations come for the purpose of campaign spending, then the first principles of free speech override those against bribery.
In any case, the extension of campaign spending and speech on behalf of a candidate for public office cannot be reasonably ascertained to be bribery of those public officials. Practically all supporters of campaign finance laws take the position that speech on behalf of a candidate may also be restricted. What is your position?
Yancey,
Correct that my proposed system is not voluntary from the taxpayers’ perspective; I meant voluntary from the candidate’s perspective. And no, it wouldn’t stop you or anyone else from buying ads or other forms of political speech apart from the candidates’ spending and speech.
(1) So I ask you again, would you object to any such a system of public financing, even if the candidates could opt out if they wished?
(2) If you would object any such system because you object to taxpayers being forced to finance it, is your objection practical (not a good use of taxpayer funds) or philisophical? In either case, please explain.
(3) And if you would object to any such system if taxpayer financed, would you object if it were voluntarily funded through private contributions?
Brooks,
Yes, if it were financed via taxes, I would be opposed. Otherwise, people are free to voluntarily fund any system they desire.
PerfectlyGoodInk,
More reprensentative by whose measure? By your argument, any campaign donation can be seen as a bribe and be appropriately banned as such.
Do you then support restrictions on non-candidates to spend whatever amount they wish on advertising and speech supporting or attacking the candidacies of seekers of political office? If so, then how do you determine what is appropriate and what is not?
Brooks,
My objection is philosophical. I do want my money and time spent supporting candidates to which I might be opposed, nor would I want to force others to support candidates that they are opposed to.
There are practical objections, too. How do you determine who gets the money and who does not? If you are going prevent some candidates from drawing from the pool, then you must set an arbitrary line where some get it and some don’t, and the only way this can be done is to require a certain level of prior public support, but then how do you build up this support if you can’t spend on political speech yourself?
It makes perfect sense that there’s much less nominal spending on elections than private advertising. Each voter has about, say, a dozen elected representatives who matter, and they only select them once every two to four years on average. In that same timeframe, they encounter tens of thousands of spending decisions. Their choices on election day are also more limited, with for the most part two or even only one choice per office. Given that for each choice, there’s really only so much advertising that can be done for each choice before it gets annoying, it is unsurprising that there’s so little spending on elections.
Another factor is that there is a huge amount of implicit spending on elections in the form of political organizing by unions, churches, etc. which isn’t included in the spending total. The private sector for the most part doesn’t engage in this; aside from maybe car enthusiast clubs and whatnot.
Also to consider is that for the people who benefit most in monetary terms from election results, it is entirely possible that it is a more worthwhile to do post-election lobbying or subsidies for ex-political people (for instance, support of think-tanks to house out-of-power Republicans who support your industry). In other words, not trying to influence election results, but making sure that regardless of the results the people elected agree with them after a couple years.
Yancey Ward: More reprensentative by whose measure?
By the people, of course. The reason that question is so important is exactly why it is important for representatives in government to closely reflect the values, perspectives, cultures, etc. of the citizens that they are representing. Money distorts our political process resulting in politicians who are more representative of rent-seekers than your average every-day American. Those individuals would prefer their tax dollars not be directed towards the rent-seekers, but face coordination problems that make them politically weaker than them.
Of course, money is not the only distortion, there’s also the two-party system, the electoral college, budget procedures, etc.
Yancey Ward: By your argument, any campaign donation can be seen as a bribe and be appropriately banned as such.
Although I put them on the same philosophical/moral continuum, I do not equate bribes and campaign donations. As this is not a black/white issue, but a problem of balancing the ideals of liberty and democracy (in one of the few areas where they conflict), it would probably be more appropriate to use a variety of tools to address different situations. For some cases, like bribes, an outright ban might be most appropriate. For others, regulation might be a better solution. And let’s not forget the other policy instrument, often more effective than regulation, taxes (and the revenues could be directed towards small-donor matching).
Of course, this debate over which instrument is most appropriate for which money is one most libertarians opt out of.
The numbers are wrong/misleading. You need to include the value of volunteer hours. Nobody is donating hundreds of hours proclaiming the greatness of ritz crackers so all advertising costs are monetary and included, but for elections there are millions(?) of skilled hours that add to the advertising cost of an election that don’t get paid and therefore not included in the monetary count.
Here’s a perfectly good close tag. Hope it works.
As for disclosure, I think it’s necessary but not sufficient. You have to rely upon journalists to go through all that information and there’s only a subset of issues where the media can overcome the free-rider problems of coordination.
And in the interest of disclosure, I should disclose that I went to San Jose State (Go Spartans!), although I never had the fortune of taking one of Prof. Lopez’s classes. Brooks’s voluntary publicly financed campaigns is mentioned in passing in Lopez’s piece, by the way.
Isn’t the public financing system already voluntary? When I get my income tax forms, I get the option of depositing a few dollars in the election fund.
“The ways in which a man may waste his substance are without number. Nonetheless, no man invests regularly without a view to his own advantage.”
A lot of companies and individuals invest regularly in politics. What advantages do they have in mind? With what outcomes? These studies just guess a the answers, they do not go and find out.
Does additional information or persuasion produced by additional spending increase voter registration or voter turnout? Do voters report feeling better informed or more sure of their choice as a result of additional spending? Apparently we have not asked.
Lopez conclusion is that it is surprising that the campaingn finace sector is not even larger; and that effective reform needs to find the roots of the problem and pull it out by them. These surveys demonstrate that we need a different sort of data to do that; data painstakingly built up from cases.
The only thing that is obvious in this is that relatively high campaign spending in the USA as opposed to other old democracies is accompanied by lower turnout, and that no causal link between the two has been established.
Here is the text of the 1st Amendment to The Constitution:
Yet, somehow, we have come to the situation where Congress can make laws abridging freedom of speech and the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Also, public financing would allow the Government to force people to support speech and politicians they would not otherwise choose to, and in doing so, must necessarily force support for some but not others equally, with no guiding principle whatsoever. Indeed, with no basic principle, any restriction should be acceptable as long as you can get a bare majority to agree that some higher purpose is served.
PerfectlyGoodInk,
With a principle like that, or lack thereof, it is perfectly acceptable to ban all money being used to promote speech. I can’t believe that you think that is acceptable, but if you are willing to accept one limit, then you really have no principle on which to stand in opposition to any lower limit that a majority agrees to, including zero. Today, I can’t even band together with fellow citizens and pool our money beyond a certain limit to promote the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office two months before the election. I may even be forced to actively justify any political speech in that time frame, further restricting my rights even if I am technically within the bounds of the law.
In any case, I do not accept your asserted equivalence between bribery and the promotion of political speech. You and Brooks have made this assertion several times without even explaining what it means to you. Am I bribing a public official if I and ten other people spend a million dollars advocating the election of Barack Obama or John McCain, or the defeat of either?
Yancey, I am pointing out that, since you agree that bribes ought to remain illegal, even you do not believe that all money is speech protected by the First Amendment.
My principle is one of balance. I value liberty, but it does not make sense to maximize liberty in this one case if it comes at the cost of a less representative democracy that, as a result, respects liberty less than it would have (think about your taxpayer money that goes towards subsidies).
Are you bribing a public official by contributing a million dollars? No. But you are corrupting the democratic process by using money to increase your political influence compared to others, just like a briber does. There are differences in degree, which is why I support looking at a variety of policy tools beyond bans and limits. But the principle of “All voters are equal, but voters who give campaign contributions are more equal than others” is not very democratic nor fair.
Yancey,
Re: I do not accept your asserted equivalence between bribery and the promotion of political speech. You and Brooks have made this assertion several times without even explaining what it means to you.
Don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve said that campaign contributions can have three adverse effects: Influencing who can become a viable candidate; Influencing who wins; Influencing decisions of office-holders (or their positions as candidates which then affect their decisions as office-holders). As for the latter, it CAN be bribery if the candidate/politician is knowingly engaging in a quid pro quo. Another possibility is that the money gained the contributor disproportionate access with which to influence the candidate/politician, or that the candidate/politician engages in rationalization on his/her own.
JFTR, I think bbass’ comment on why this comparison is silly is quite accurate.
How often do you vote? How often do you shop?
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/what_is_public_financing.html
PerfectlyGoodInk and Brooks,
I will ask one last time since I still have not gotten a straight answer from either of you:
Do you think third party spending on political speech should be restricted by government? I am not talking about campaign donations of money- I am talking about someone spending, let us say, $1 million dollars promoting the election or defeat of a candidate for office. Do you think such spending is bribery, or could be seen to be bribery?
Brooks,
I asked the question twice in different ways, though the question was explicitly asked in a comment addressed to PGI. And yet, I still don’t get a straight answer from you. Instead, I get the following:
A tough call? The right to free speech is either protected or it is not. It appears that you do want to put restrictions on the rights to fund even “non-coordinated” speech, but I still can’t tell for sure since you resort to statements like the above, or attempt once again to wonder whether or not such third party spending is a form of bribery
Your publicly funded system cannot fund all political speech, thus it must, by design, deny such funds to certain factions. Such factions must then resort to private support, but then are there limits to that support that are set by the government.
Again, do you support limits on private third party spending for political advertising? A yes or no answer is all that is required. Do you go with your first inclination or not?
Yancey Ward: Do you think third party spending on political speech should be restricted by government?
It depends. Ideally, no. As someone with an economics background (if the “It depends” didn’t give that away), I tend to avoid bans, limits, or even regulation as much as possible because they often create perverse incentives. Note that public financing and small donor matching do not impact third-party ads at all (but I would argue that ads ought to be covered under a campaign finance taxation scheme, of course).
However, in the absence of a campaign financing system that minimizes money’s distorting effect on the political process, yes, we could be better off regulating or banning third-party political ads. After all, somebody who wishes to voice their support of a candidate can still do so via other means (e.g. blog, volunteer their time to their campaign). They are still free to say what they want to say. Indeed, it’s just like Citizen George, who, in the absence of the option of bribing, can still get his message out via other means. George would prefer to directly influence the legislator, but the degree of infringement upon his freedom of speech by the banning of bribes is insignificant compared to the degree that corruption was reduced due to Reggie’s inability to use bribes to rent-seek.
This calculation may not be as obvious for third-party ads, but just like in the bribery case, the impact on freedom of speech must be compared with the impact on fairness and the democratic political process. You’d need to look who’s buying third-party ads and ascertain what percentage of them are made up by Rent-seeking Reggies and how many of them are Citizen Georges and Joes. If, as I suspect, the vast majority of them are rent-seekers, regulation or taxation of such ads could improve the situation. But if more libertarians bothered to apply their minds to the problem, I’m sure we could come up with something better.
As I’ve said many and many a time here, in contrast to people who think there are simple answers to complex questions, I believe the campaign financing issue is ultimately one about balancing the ideals of liberty against the ideals of democracy. That was exactly why bribery was banned, despite its impacts upon both freedom of speech and freedom of exchange. Most libertarians focus exclusively on liberty when democracy is actually one of the best guardians of liberty in our society. Indeed, the effects of campaign contributions to distort the political and economic landscape in the direction of more government should be making this clear.
Yancey,
here I have two people proposing that the amount of political speech should be limited because such limits may serve some greater good
Do you LISTEN, or just speak? And do you ANSWER questions or just demand answers to your own?
Let’s assume that my proposed system includes NO LIMITS on the amount of political speech if someone opts out of the available public campaign funding. OK, so your straw man is gone. Now, I ask you yet again to address my argument regarding your earlier objection (your objection on the grounds that no taxpayers should have to fund speech they don’t wish to fund). Stop yapping and start listening and responding.
here I have two people proposing that the amount of political speech should be limited because such limits may serve some greater good
Again, LISTEN, CONSIDER, and THEN respond. See my earlier comment regarding the fact that rights are not absolute, so you can’t simply make that slippery slope argument unless you want to ban any government spending on anything that could be considered by anyone to be political speech.
Yancey Ward: The very idea that limits can be place on the amount of political speech means that any limit may be acceptable as long as you can get a majority to agree to it,
The ban on bribery is already a limit on political speech. From my first comment here:
Well, I find it useful because many libertarians hide behind the false dictum that “money is speech.” I’ve used the argument several times and have yet to hear a good response to it.
I don’t expect you to defend it if you don’t agree with it. The world would be a boring place if everybody agreed with everybody.
Yes, I would agree that rent-seeking or is not speech — whether it takes the form of a bribe or a campaign contribution. The point I made with Citizen George and Rent-seeking Reggie is that campaign financing is a channel that can be used for both political speech and rent-seeking — and the same is true for bribes. Just like one can give money to an official’s campaign warchest for a variety of reasons, one can give money directly to an elected official for a variety of reasons (including idealism and altruism and gratitude), not just to obtain political favors. It’s difficult to distinguish between George and Reggie because the difference comes down to motives, and it’s not hard for a rent-seeker to come up with an ideological argument as cover (e.g. the real estate industry can argue in favor of the mortgage deduction by claiming that homeownership is good for society). So we use imperfect filters, like banning bribes, even though it limits the freedom of those who would give to politicians for “good” reasons.
Also, it’s been my experience that any practical or pragmatic arguments fall upon deaf ears when talking to somebody who believes on principle that any and all restrictions on political money are violations of the First Amendment.
it’s been my experience that any practical or pragmatic arguments fall upon deaf ears when talking to somebody who believes on principle that any and all restrictions on political money are violations of the First Amendment.
First, you never know. Second, in a public forum like a blog, the audience is not limited to the person with whom you’re engaged in an exchange. Remember what Nick Naylor said (in response to the question asked at 7:06 of this video http://youtube.com/watch?v=iOPUUhZau2c&feature=related ), “I’m not after you. I’m after THEM”.
Perfectly G I,
I understood what you meant by “bribe”. You meant “bribe”, as in money to the candidate in return for some favor such as a particular vote (or putting something in legislation, etc.) as a clear quid pro quo.
Not sure what you’re referring to when you refer to “the ban on giving money directly to candidates”, but as for your overall comment, sounds like what you’re saying is that anything we do in terms of restricting/regulating campaign finance will also reduce opportunities for bribes. Even if that is/were true, that doesn’t mean that banning bribes is the equivalent of banning speech, or that contending that “money (campaign contributions) is speech” is inconsisent with the position that bribery should be illegal. Banning handguns or imposing stricter gun control might reduce opportunity and incidence of armed robberies, but it is not inconsistent for someone to oppose such a ban or such restrictions yet believe that armed robbery (with or without a handgun) should be illegal.
Perfectly G I,
Yes, I remember the Prisoner’s Dilemma from B-school (MBA) and I understand your point.
However, the term “gratuity” doesn’t seem fitting either, although it’s probably closer to what you’re talking about than “bribe”.
I suggest just staying away from such over-broad use of this terminology, because it can end up just being a distraction and providing an opportunity for some folks to focus the debate on the terminology, and possibly reduce your influence by showing weaknesses in your arguments in that semantic battle.
The point is that big campaign contributions (e.g., from “bundlers”) can give some people/industries/businesses/etc. disproportionate influence over (1) who can become a viable candidate, (2) over who wins, (3) over what candidate positions are taken, and (4) over the decisions and actions (e.g., votes; drafting of legislation) of political office-holders.
#1 and #2 can either be contributors helping a candidate who already sincerely holds views that are favorable to the contributors, or could be a case of the candidate choosing positions insincerely in anticipation of the need/desire to get these campaign contributions. #3 and #4 may be a an overt bribe, or may set up may provide food-for-rationalization (candidate/office-holder wants the campaign contribution, so talks himself into thinking some policy position is actually the right one), or may create the tit-for-tat situation to which you alluded (office-holder knows that if he doesn’t vote the way the contributor wants, he may not get that big campaign contribution next time), or may gain the contributor(s) greater access to the candidate/office-holder with which to make their case, etc.
Perfectly G I,
Obviously I have no way of knowing if it’s been a persuasive argument, let alone if it’s been more persuasive than what I’m suggesting.
I suppose when preaching to the choir, more inflammatory arguments, even if less valid, may be more effective, although it doesn’t arm such people with arguments they can use to persuade others outside the choir.
Also, I don’t like the idea of using arguments that are partly or completely invalid even in pursuit of a just end (e.g., beneficial legislation). If you believe that using the term “gratuity” is perfectly valid, then it presents no such moral dilemma for you. But I think I’ve explained why even that term is not really valid (also, the sequence can be inverted from a gratuity situation — i.e., a gratuity follows the service), and I also consider it a distraction at best from the arguments themselves, and at worst a combination of a distraction and a loss of credibility on your part if people poke holes in your argument for the applicability of that term.
Anyway, I think we’re on the same side on this issue, and I’d like to keep in touch and share thoughts and info over time, so email me anytime at BrooksBud@aol.com
Thank you for sharing this information.
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