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Posted by PAUL SILVER in At TMV.
Jun 4th, 2008 | Comments

Public campaign finance system launched

HARTFORD, Conn. – The state has launched a voluntary program to publicly fund campaigns for statewide office and the legislature.

To date, 145 candidates have signed up.

In return, they must forgo contributions from political action committees, raise small contributions from individuals and adhere to campaign spending limits and other restrictions. The proponents of the law, passed in 2005, say it will give average citizens more of a voice in Connecticut politics and reduce the influence of special interests.

Candidates who qualify can receive $25,000 for a state House race and $85,000 for a state Senate race. Much of the money will come from unclaimed property.

Bravo for Connecticut! I can only hope that this is another small step towards increasing the proportion of pragmatic and open minded representatives free of ideological extremes and devotion to narrow special interests.

Also there is this op-ed out of Dallas questioning whether voters are better served by “less” competitive campaigns. The Author is proposing that redistricting aim to consolidate voters of similar politics so that they can be assured of representation rather than than having more competitive districts that may be more likely to disenfranchise more voters. In his scheme the real competition would happen at the primary stage where publicly financed campaigns could still have a liberating effect on independently minded candidates. I like that he challenges my notions about what is the wisest course towards more representative government.

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superdestroyer

The idiot professor from UT-Dallas should have in tenured pulled and she be forced out of education because he is obviously an idiot. Blue and Red districts in Texas mean white districts and minority districts. Why would anyone want to establish a system and rewards the worst form of partisans while spliting up communities. Districts should have geography, history, and location in common instead of race, ethnicity, or income.

As an example, everyone in Houston should have representatives who worry about the local schools, local infrastructure, and local quality of life. Under the idiots proposals, Houston would split between a representative who wants highways for the white suburbanites and a representative who wants more transfer payments and government jobs for the black voters in Wards 3 and 5.

Single block district quickly lead to what I refer to as Welfare representatives. They disconnect themselves from the local community and concentrate of their subgroup. thus, you have representatives who propose closing the largest employers in town, proposing environmental laws that are unobtainable, or proposing government rent seeking. The represenatives feel free to undertake such policies because they have no interest in the economic well being of anyone but their subgroup.

PaulSilver

I thought the Professor raised a relevant point. If districts are configured to be more competitive then we may encounter the unintended consequence that some minority interests are under represented in the legislative bodies. If Hispanics are 40% in each of a dozen districts they could end up with relatively low representation.

I still would prefer a more competitive mix in each district so that the debate about interests of various groups can take place at a more local and intimate forum eg. farmers and urbanites debating the allocation of scarce water resources.

runasim

A very good post, and Brunell's article offers an angle I had not considered before.
It's always wise not to succumb to tunnel vision, but to look at a problem from many different angles.

The stabbing thorn in my side is always the role of money, as an inequality of funds carries an inherent inequality of say-so.

In addition, all through this agonizing primary season, I kept thinking about how fundraising prowess of the candidates overshadowed news about world hunger and increasing food prices. There is something so discordant in that!!

pacatrue

Hi Paul and runasim,

This is what I mentioned in a comment a while back where in Louisiana they precisely have a couple of congressional districts drawn up to increase the probability of some representation for black Louisianians, though I'm not sure of the exact history of the districts. The problem you had in Louisiana (it's my example only because it's where I grew up) precisely because 35-40% of the people of Louisiana were black and had no true representation. Race overruled most other voting motivations and governance decisions. So there are several questions:

1) Where should competition and compromise occur? At every district or at a higher level? With Paul's proposals, he is fighting for more of a district-by-district competition, while Dr. Brunell is arguing for little competition in the general election and more at the final state level.

2) Should districts be drawn with the same rationale in every area? It might make sense in some places to have race be a factor, due to its historical and remaining relevance in places like Louisiana. In other places, perhaps economic level should be a factor? And in other places, perhaps economic "lifestyle" for lack of a better term might be a relevant factor -- I'm thinking here of places like Minnesota where the urban/suburban Twin Cities are a very different world from the rest of largely agricultural Minnesota.

I don't know the answers to my questions.

pacatrue

I should add that a weakness of Brunell's proposal is that, depending on which districts are being drawn, it assumes that most importance governance decisions are made top-down, i.e., from the state or federal level down to the local. His proposal seems to emphasize competition only at these higher levels. But if important decisions are also made locally, then only having like-minded people together at the local level would lead to a locally ignored minority.

runasim

Pacatrue,
My answer to all your questions: I don't know.

What I suspect is that it always simply depends on how things work out, something very hard to predict in the abstract, and especially over time.
Further question, when the composition of districts is different from state to state,, are the effects also different? Would a rule that works in LA also suit MI or NH?
Could it be that there is no one-size-fits-all rule?

As I uderstand it, The Dem's . complicaed primary rules (caucuses + primaries) were established in the civil raights era in response to representaion inequalities. I doubt anyone could have foretold what problems these rules would cause in a close race such as the current one.

i wish someone would create computer models, like what has been done for climate changes. I'm not capable of imagining and evaluating all the different variants involved. I have to take it one thought at a time.

The 'locally ignored minority' is a problem throughout, and should be acknowledged more when controversial issues are 'solved' by referring them to states' rights.

GeorgeSorwell

Politicians will remain faithful to their constituents as long as there is some uncertainty in their minds about their ability to hold on to their seat. As long as every seat is contestable (has the potential for a strong challenger to emerge and beat the incumbent) this condition is well satisfied. Since we have primary elections, this means that every seat is always contestable – regardless of the proportion of Democrats or Republicans in the district. In fact, the more lopsided a district is drawn favoring one party over the other, the more attractive it is for potential candidates to run in the primary.

What happens to the members of Party A when they live in a district designed to suit only members of Party B? Wouldn't it be as if the members of Party A have no voice in the election? No voice in their government? And never any hope of acquiring a voice in subsequent elections?

Aren't we in this situation right now?

Hasn't it made for a a more partisan Congress?

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