Campaign finance reform: faulty assumptions and undemocratic consequences

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1998 by Bradley A. Smith

The agenda of the campaign finance I reform movement has been to lower the cost of campaigning, reduce the influence of special interests, and open up the political system to change. In 1974, reformers gained their greatest victory, passing major amendments to the Federal Elections Campaign Act. Nevertheless, by 1996, Congressional campaign spending, in constant dollars, nearly had tripled.

Congressional election contributions by political action committees (PACs) increased from $20,500,000 in 1976 to $189,000,000 in 1994. Since 1974, the number of PACs has risen from 608 to more than 4,500. House incumbents outspent challengers in 1996 by almost four to one. Meanwhile, incumbent reelection rates in the House reached record highs in 1986 and 1988, before declining slightly in the 1990s. What went wrong?

The problem is that reform has been based on faulty assumptions and is, in fact, irretrievably undemocratic. Reform proposals inherently favor certain political elites. support the status quo, and discourage grassroots political activity.

Faulty assumptions

Too much money is spent on campaigns. The language in which political campaigns are described in the press reinforces the perception that too much money is spent on them. Candidates "amass war chests" with the help of special interests" which pour their millions" into campaigns. "Obscene" expenditures "careen" out of control or "skyrocket" upwards. Yet, to say that too much money is spent on campaigning is to beg the question. "compared to what?" For instance, Americans expend two to three times as much money each year on potato chips as on political campaigns.

In the two-year period ending in November, 1996, approximately $800,000.000 was spent by all Congressional general election candidates. Although this set a record for Congressional races, it amounts to about $4 per eligible voter, spent over a two-year period. Total direct campaign outlays for all candidates for local, state, and Federal elections over the same period can be estimated around $2,500,000,000. or about $12 per eligible voter over the two-year cycle. By comparison, Procter & Gamble and Philip Morris, the nation's two largest advertisers, budget roughly the same amount on advertising as is laid out by all political candidates and parties.

Increased campaign spending does translate into a better informed electorate, and voter understanding of issues grows with the quantity of campaign information received. Candidate ads are the major source of voter information. Lower campaign spending will result in less public awareness and understanding of issues. Considering the importance of elections to any democratic society, it is hard to believe that direct expenditures of approximately $10 per voter for all local, state. and national campaigns over a two-year period is a crisis requiring government regulation and limitations on spending.

Campaigns based on small contributions are more democratic. As many as 18,000,000 Americans make some financial contribution to a political party, candidate, or PAC in an election cycle. No other system of campaign funding anywhere in die world enjoys so broad a base of support. Yet, this amounts to just 10% of the voting-age population. Even though this figure represents a far broader base of contributors than historically has existed, it made the political system more democratic and responsive.

In many cases, those candid,, who best are able to raise campaign dollars in small contributions are those who are most emphatically out of the mainstream. Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, for example, garnered $5,800,000 from 410,000 small contributors he suffered a landslide defeat. On his way to an even more crushing defeat in 1972, Democrat George McGovern raised almost $15,000,000 from small donors, at an average of approximately $20 per contributor.

Assuming that reliance on numerous small contributions makes a campaign in some way more democratic, the most "democratic" campaign of recent years was the 1994 Senate race of Republican Oliver North. He amassed approximately $20,000,000, almost entirely from small contributors, and outspent his nearest rival by nearly four-to-one. Yet, he lost to an unpopular opponent plagued by personal scandal.

With the exception of the occasional candidate such as McGovern or North, Americans are unwilling, individually, to contribute enough money in small amounts to run modern campaigns. The likelihood that what any individual does will matter simply is too small to provide most voters with the incentive to give financially to candidates. If large contributions were banned totally, there would not be enough money available to finance campaigns at a level that informs the electorate.

Money buys elections. A candidate with little or no money to spend is unlikely to win most races. Furthermore, the one expending the most wins more often than not. The correlation between spending and victory, though, may stem simply from the desire of donors to contribute to candidates who are likely to win, in which case the ability to win attracts money, rather than the other way around. Similarly, higher levels of campaign contributions to a candidate may reflect a level of public support that is manifested later at the polls.