Even though he has one of the largest political war chests for his upcoming Senate campaign, Senator minority leader McConnell is polling with surprisingly low margins relative to his potential opponents. The Senator is perhaps the most prominent champion of special interest influence and his retirement would be an opportunity to advance the reform of campaigns and elections.
While the presidential campaign is exciting and entertaining I maintain that focusing our resources on the Senate and House campaigns will do much more to advance the public policies the GOP has been successful in thwarting: Renewable Energy, Immigration reform, Clean Elections, Climate Change, Universal Health Care, etc. And while I am not officially a Democrat I believe that the mistakes they make do far less harm than do those of the GOP.
David James of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner says that if you’re feeling blue about the state of Alaska politics and government don’t despair. There are few things voters can do to counter-act the wave of corruption including voting in favor the public financing initiative on August’s ballot.
The Alaska Clean Elections initiative asks voters whether they’d support a voluntary full public financing program for state elections that will help cut down on the influence of private money on elections, and public officials. Says James:
“[V]ote “yes” on the Alaska Clean Elections Initiative that will appear on the primary ballot. This will establish a public funding mechanism for political campaigns in Alaska. Such systems are presently at work in seven states, ranging from liberal Vermont to conservative Arizona, and are both popular and successful. Public funding will give candidates the option of avoiding the fundraising process altogether and concentrating on the needs of their potential constituents instead.
Public funding under this initiative will not be mandatory. Candidates will retain the option of raising private funds rather than accepting public dollars. However, when Alaskans are faced with a choice between one candidate who is publicly financed and another who takes his money from wealthy Florida land speculators, they will implicitly know who is most likely to represent their interests. As the VECO bribery scandal demonstrated, there is very little that some politicians won’t do for campaign money.”
It is heartbreaking when those who know better and have worked their entire lives for change fade in the clutch. It shows the almost insurmountable power of self interest to veto what everyone knows in their heart is reasonable, fair and necessary. This saga also illustrates why even though I am in sympathy with much of the liberal agenda I can’t bring my self to commit to the Democratic Party. It is just as likely to lose site of the reason for power as the GOP. (promoting excessive farm subsidies, resisting redistricting reform in states they have an advantage, giving Hedge funds a pass on taxes…)
Before he suddenly became New York’s governor, David Paterson was a committed reformer. In his years as a state senator (and leader of the Democratic minority), he called for limiting special-interest money, public financing of elections, and sweeping out as much muck as possible from the State Legislature. Read the rest of this entry »
I try to pace out my comments about Campaign Finance Reform to avoid burning out the few of you folks who care. But when the Wall Street Journal, the newspaper to the people who run the world, writes an editorial on the subject I can’t let that just go by without a comment from a Moderate Voice.
In The Reformers Who Ruined Politics the Journal vents that regulation is undermining freedom of speech and giving advantage to the liberal interest groups.
If this campaign proves anything, it is that more reform on the post-Watergate model will only compound the McCain-Feingold-Clinton-Obama folly. The rules themselves are the scandal, empowering the powerful and making it harder for voters to judge the indebtedness of candidates to individuals or interest groups.
The better path is more simplicity and transparency, so office seekers can raise whatever amount they can from whomever they want so long as it is reported immediately on the Internet. It’s time we reclaimed politics from the reformers who ruined it.
Their remedy is still public policy for sale to the highest bidder. Is it realistic that consumer groups can compete with the unlimited donations from multinational juggernauts?
What is more realistic is to allow any candidate to take money from any source and support from any third party but to make sure that any credible opponents has equal amounts of cash and resources to make sure the public can hear equally from all points of view. Under these conditions most donors would probably take a pass rather than have their funds neutralized with public money. The result is that almost all campaigns would be funded at relatively modest levels, at least by current standards.
Just because the current regulations on campaign finance are deficient doesn’t mean that a better approach doesn’t exist. Let’s try something else until we find what works better.
“You can’t restrict the flow of that dirty money. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t add clean money to match it”
The court had struck down limits on third party campaigns as, I assume, a limit on free speech. But they also validated the existence of public funding of campaigns. The remaining challenge is legislation to close the gap between the funding of competing candidates so that special interests do not drown out opposing points of view.
I recognize that my posts on campaign reform do not generate much debate at TMV. And if Joe Gandelman decides that the space can be better used by another I would not protest. But I can’t read about the problems of the world without trying to understand their source and possible remedies. It is as much a mental health exercise as an intellectual one.
Government of the people and by the people (and protection of minority interests) is perhaps the greatest milestone of humanity - People working together to agree on the best course for the future. It is a great concept that is weakened by the corruption of the greedy and selfish who place their interests above those of our societies. It is the most fundamental responsibility of citizens to do what is necessary to ensure that we have our wisest representatives participating in decisions determining the quality of our lives and those of our children. And for me, this all points to the ongoing efforts of perfecting how we elect those representatives.
Governor John Lynch (D-NH) will sign legislation next month appointing a seven member commission to examine and recommend options to establish a system of public funding of elections.
“This is an unwise use of taxpayers’ dollars,” Hays said. “Think of all the good that $11 million could do for women and children in a budget year like this.”
Villalobos flatly rejected the argument. Checking the power of special interests will save taxpayers much more money in the long run, he said.
Paterson Says No to Public Campaign Financing For Now
ALBANY, NEW YORK Governor David Paterson threw cold water on reform advocate’s efforts to advance public campaign finance reform, saying with the worsening fiscal situation, it’s not the time to provide public money.
Advocates for the public financing of campaigns were in Albany to promote a bill that would provide public dollars to candidates running for office. The bill had been previously sponsored in the legislature by Governor David Paterson, when he was a Senator. But Governor Paterson… says he now thinks the time is not right for public financing of campaigns, given the state’s financial problems. Paterson says he’s already trying to persuade the legislature to cut the budget.
” I’m not going to add another $50 to $60 million dollars on to it by saying, ‘by the way, all of you have got to tighten your belts but we have to have public financing because I don’t want to tighten my belt’,” Paterson said.
Paterson says as soon as the economy stabilizes, he’ll once again be an advocate for the public financing of campaigns.
It seems to me that one of the challenges of balancing the state budget will be the pressure from special interests to preserve their advantages. And, I am only guessing but, the total amount of special interest expectations are a lot more than the cost of publicly financed elections. The whole notion behind separating legislators from special interests is to allow more objective and open minded deliberation of the best use of public funds. Isn’t this the essence of the aphorism “penny wise and pound foolish”
Also this helps advance consideration for a funding source that is not coming all from general taxes. Perhaps tapping the media companies for a special supplemental tax since they are the ultimate beneficiaries of most campaign spending.
Blogs are a convenient outlet for venting outrage. Reading so many I find it hard to spread my passion in so many directions and I often become numb to the steady flow of crisis. Then mainly for my mental health I try to shift focus to ponder constructive responses to our challenges.
I often wonder if the two party system is irretrievably broken and that special interests are so entrenched that pragmatic, open minded, reasonable deliberation and action is no longer possible. I consider the need for a new party with a platform made up of all the policies that are currently mired and diverted.
Then I consider if the members of this new party can actually agree on this new platform. And if they were to miraculously agree could they avoid the seduction of special interests to derail even this new noble attempt at progress? And if they avoided the seduction of money could they also avoid the traps of becoming fragmented, hyper partisan or inflexible?
I am dubious that a new party would be an improvement; and that if it failed it could cause another generation of jaded potential activists, (such was my concern with Unity 08).
And I find myself pondering what seems like a better use of our time and resources: To liberate the integrity, compassion and pragmatism of our politicians, both conservative and liberal, by freeing them from the influence of selfish interests and hyper partisan, inflexible, constituents and donors.
So while I empathize with the urge for a new Party, I believe that it would be far more efficient to focus on the few essential adjustments necessary to make the current system work. And we can do this by focusing on leveling the playing field by reforming Campaign Finance, Redistricting, and Elections. For far less money than it takes to organize and operate a new party we could refine that system we already have.
All it takes would be a few high profile champions like Mayor Bloomberg, the consolidation of most of the existing reform groups into a single focused force, and the creation of a Reform PAC to give us an outlet to turn our outrage into productive change.
Mayor Bloomberg and Gov Schwarzenegger agree that the policy difference that makes the biggest difference is to make elections more competitive and drive candidates away from ideological extremes. Imagine how each of our most controversial public issues would be handled by a deliberative legislature that was less concerned about hyper partisan voters and donors. I can’t imagine a better use for the celebrity and money of these wise leaders.
Mayor Bloomberg is contributing $250,000 toward passing Governor Schwarzenegger’s redistricting plan, which the mayor suggests could be adopted in New York one day.
“What Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to do is to have a fair, nonpolitical way of districting for elected officials,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters yesterday. “And if he can get that done there, maybe, just maybe, our Legislature here would do the same thing.”
Under Mr. Schwarzenegger’s initiative, the state would create a 14-person Citizens Redistricting Commission consisting of equal numbers of Democratic and Republican members to vote on a redistricting plan. Currently, the state Legislature decides district boundaries. Mr. Schwarzenegger says his plan would reduce gerrymandering and make elections more competitive.
…”Mayor Bloomberg is a national leader in supporting centrist leadership and is committed to bringing about reforms that will make government more responsive to the people,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “He and I see eye to eye on many things and I look forward to our continued partnership as we work together on this important measure.”
Perhaps these maneuvers are what Senator Obama had in mind when he said he wanted to negotiate with the Republican Nominee on a fair campaign finance agreement. I also imagine that the FEC might have something to say about these tactics if they had a quorum.
The new structure allows up to $70,000 in individual contributions by channeling the money into different McCain-centric funds.
My thinking about campaign finance is constantly evolving, trying to balance freedom of speech with preventing special interests from buying elections and candidates. As of today my notion is to allow a candidate and supporters to raise as much money as they want to mount their campaign. Meanwhile a qualified candidate who choses not to pander can receive the equivalent public funds. And the source of these funds would be largely from the media industry that is the eventual beneficiary of most campaign spending.
Since it is almost futile to stop the invasion of money into politics perhaps the better part of valor is to try to neutralize it.
Jay Mandle, an economics professor on the board of the reform group “Democracy Matters”, made this analysis of A Small Donor Democracy? He discovers that the majority of political donations under $200 still seem to come from those who are relatively well off. And so the Obama rationalization that his small donor army is comparable to a publicly financed campaign is dubious. Prosperous donors are still more influential than the poorer classes and such a system is not a reasonable substitute for a publicly financed campaign system. I had imagined that Obama’s army was mostly made up of college kids sending in $20 at a time. This data surprised me.
So now I find myself reduced to the rationalization that in spite of his flip-flop on using campaign finance for this election Obama still seems to me to be the one most likely to promote campaign and election reform once in office. McCain was the previous champion but I am concerned that he is pandering to constituents not likely to support the de-linking of freedom of speech and campaign donations. I have heard nothing that make me think that Clinton would not continue to pander to wealth. Read the rest of this entry »
I have to admit that I am torn by the notion that Obama may bypass public financing It backs out of an agreement while also respecting the intention behind the agreement.
For me the intention behind the public financing of campaigns is to minimize the disproportionate influence of special interests while reducing the amount of time a candidate needs to spend pandering for money. Obama has achieved this with his unprecedented internet collections from over 1.2 million donors. John McCain’s candidacy is relatively less motivating to his supporters and so Public Financing may look attractive to him.
The current laws for public financing do not anticipate that so much money could be raised from so many people. And now we learn that perhaps it should by factoring it into the calculations for how much public money is needed to create a level playing field. Or if we are bold enough we might consider eliminating most campaign finance rules except those limiting the amount that can be given while limiting the source of funds to only individuals and not legal entities. This logic of limiting how much an individual can give is that, while each of us should have a right to be heard, we should not have a right to block our opposition from being heard.
Since the GOP has been the main obstacle to public financing (by equating speech and money) perhaps this changing landscape will inspire their leadership in reforming the guidelines for fair elections free of special interest influence.
Nothing like a turn of events to convert opponents into champions.
Ross Douthat writes in the Atlantic.com blog about Lieberman Democrats and the challenge of finding, and staying in, the political center
…the American “center” moves around a lot (and varies wildly on an issue-by-issue basis), and thus a party that moves leftward or rightward on the hot-button issues of the day can sometimes find a new center that nobody realized was there. This tends to leave the inhabitants of the old middle - the Rockefeller Republicans in the ’70s and ’80s, and perhaps the Lieberman Democrats of today - flummoxed and out-of-step, unable to figure out that just because they’ve always considered themselves “centrists” doesn’t mean the American people will always agree with them.
Ain’t that the truth. It is harder to create agreement on a centrist position than for any other position on the political spectrum.
Instead of firing arguments into a crowd with your back against the wall one is in the middle firing back in all directions. No wonder Centrists are relatively scarce - they tucker out faster.
But it seems to me that by shifting the geometry a bit we can mark out a relatively stable place form which Centrists can join the fray. Read the rest of this entry »
At the Center for Competitive Politics, which is a leading champion for the equating of speech and money in politics, is an interesting commentary that the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act has resulted in the weakening of the influence of the two major Parties. Money is diverted to third-party groups that may have different agendas than Party leadership.
I think this is a good thing and levels the playing field for other points of view.
This new organizaton intends to coordinate with the existing groups focused on reforming Congressional Campaigns and Elections. The distinction of this new entity is that internet campaign guru Joe Trippi is heading it up (formerly of the John Edwards and Howard Dean campaigns). And he intends to concentrate on identifying candidates who support reforms and facilitating their fund raising. Also this group is associated with the Sunlight Foundation which doesn’t seem to have much trouble attracting financing.
I applaud and will support this new group. Meanwhile I encourage all of the reform groups to find a way to consolidate into a more easily recognized Brand just as various factions coalesce into the Democratic and Republican Parties. Most voters are not engaged in the political process enough to appreciate the nuances that define similar but different groups. Too many choices often result in a failure to commit. It is vain and self defeating to perpetuate small and impotent groups when a larger and better financed one can better get the job done.
The Supreme court voted 7 to 2 to allow Washington to go forward with its new electoral structure, under which the top two vote-getters in the open primary advance to the general election, regardless of party. That means two Democrats or two Republicans could end up facing each other in November in a gubernatorial or congressional contest, with the other party left on the outside looking in.
Both the state Democratic party and the state GOP strongly opposed the new system, arguing that it deprived them of the right to pick their own nominees as they see fit.
It seems to me that this novel approach increases the chances that a moderate not locked into party allegiance can move forward in elections. The only requirement is to be persuasive.
The Center for Competitive Politics posted a comment entitled Money well spent? that pointed out that the Pew Charitable Trusts wasted a lot of money underwriting efforts to enact restrictive campaign finance laws. A study by the Trust found that there was no relationship between the professional management of the 50 states and the existence of these restrictive campaign finance laws. So I wrote back the following:
I looked at the Pew Evaluation on Government Performance and indeed there appears to be little correlation between the level of professional management of the States and restrictive campaign finance laws.
But consider that this is not the indicator used by those of us who support reform of campaigns. What is not measured by the PEW study is how the States managed businesses that impact the daily lives of citizens. Was there favoritism to the Cable or Telephone companies on rules for setting rates and services? Likewise for HMOs, Insurance Companies, Banking and Usury laws, Power companies, or Polluters, etc.. This is where folks like me are concerned about the influence of special interests on the judgment of our Representatives.
