Campaign Finance Reform
Point-Counterpoint
First posted August 31, 2001
A point-by-point rebuttal to some common objections to campaign finance reform.
Point
“Campaign finance reform is an attack on the First Amendment because it places limits on political speech.”
Counterpoint
Campaign finance reform addresses the money in politics, it does not limit political speech. Money is not speech, it is a megaphone for speech that amplifies the voices of those who have deep pockets and drowns out the voices of those who don’t. Campaign finance reform is critical to free speech because political speech has become anything but free. The cherished First Amendment right to free speech is being turned into a privilege – a commodity that is bought and sold. The skyrocketing cost of campaigns prices people of modest means out of the democratic process. We need a level playing field that allows everyone to participate in our democracy.
Point
“Reformers say we need public financing of political campaigns, but taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be used to pay for candidates’ TV ads. Public financing is nothing but welfare for politicians.”
Counterpoint
The public will always pay for election campaigns one way or the other. We can pay directly through a system of publicly financed elections, or we can do what we're doing now and pay to subsidize the donors who are bankrolling today's campaigns. The Democracy Campaign's research shows that the biggest campaign contributors are getting an average of $100 back from our state government for every dollar they donate to the politicians' campaigns. We as taxpayers are footing the bill for all the tax breaks, pork barrel projects and contracts for state work that are bestowed upon the most generous donors.
If we had effective spending limits on campaign spending, there wouldn’t be so much money spent on expensive – and often nasty – TV ads. But the courts have only allowed spending limits if candidates voluntarily agree to abide by them in exchange for a public grant. So public financing is a crucial linchpin for any meaningful campaign reform. Without it, there can be no enforceable spending limits. And without spending limits, there is no way to stop the political arms race or curb growing special interest influence over the public policymaking process. Public financing not only makes it possible to limit campaign spending, but it also reduces special interest influence by replacing private money with public money. Public financing is not welfare for politicians, it is a security deposit for democracy and an essential investment in clean elections.
It’s ironic that many anti-reform legislators who dismiss public financing as “welfare for politicians” or “socialized campaigning” had no problem being on the public dole and spending $4 million a year for many years on state offices called legislative caucuses that engaged in secret, illegal campaign activities to help them get re-elected. They also have no problem spending some $60 million more from the public treasury on their office accounts, mailing privileges and personal staffs. Their opposition to public financing of campaigns is hypocritical to say the least. They support a very expensive system of public financing, but it only helps those in power and not candidates who seek to challenge them.
Point
“Trying to stop the flow of money in politics is like trying to stop water from flowing downhill. You can dam it one place or another but it’ll always get around the dams.”
Counterpoint
This cynical view ignores the fact that history is full of examples of effective reforms that have been enacted and proved effective for long periods of time. In the early 1900s, Wisconsin responded to growing concerns about corporate influence over government by enacting a prohibition on corporate contributions to political campaigns. The corporate donation ban worked for nearly a century. It wasn’t until 1996, with the advent of phony “issue ads” paid for with undisclosed funds, that corporate money found its way back into the political process in Wisconsin.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal in 1977, Wisconsin enacted campaign finance reforms that were a model for the nation and featured the country’s first system of public financing of election campaigns. The system worked well for more than a decade, as candidates from both political parties accepted the public financing grants and ran their campaigns under the accompanying spending limits. The system began to break down in the early 1990s because the legislature had stopped adjusting the spending limits for inflation and took no action to update the funding source of the grants, leaving the public financing system woefully underfunded and giving candidates less and less financial incentive to agree to what were becoming increasingly outdated spending limits.
Minnesota modeled its campaign finance system after Wisconsin’s, but Minnesota continues to adjust its spending limits and has made sure the candidate grants remain fully funded. To this day, Minnesota enjoys nearly universal participation in its system. As a result, spending in state campaigns is under control there, races are more competitive and incumbent office holders are less likely to be re-elected than in Wisconsin. Minnesota’s experience goes to show that reforms are possible, and when they are enacted they make a difference. But our neighbor’s experience also shows that reforms don’t last unless they are constantly revisited and kept up to date. A good campaign finance system – like democracy itself – is a living organism that will die without constant attention and care.
Point
“Campaign finance reform will never happen because the people who have to vote to change the current system are the prime beneficiaries of the system.”
Counterpoint
It’s true that reformers face the formidable task of convincing lawmakers to change rules that have been very good to them. Current office holders will not change a system that put them in power and is keeping them in power unless the price of maintaining the corrupt status quo becomes intolerably high. Campaign finance reform won’t happen unless people demand it. Citizens can’t afford to let this issue be an insider’s game. The health of our democracy is every citizen’s business and, frankly, the public interest is not going to be served on any issue you care about as long as special interests with huge bank accounts play such a dominant role in financing political campaigns.
There’s too much money and too much special interest influence in politics and there are proven remedies for these problems at our disposal. But our elected representatives will pay more attention to their cash constituents than their voting constituents if we let them. We can take comfort, however, in history – the people of Wisconsin have rooted out corruption and cleaned up politics before. Citizens refused to take no for an answer in the early 1900s and again in the wake of the 1970s Watergate scandal. It can happen again.
