There’s been a lot of talk lately about public financing of political campaigns. Personally, I’m skeptical. A true system of public financing would be phenomenally expensive, and I doubt that most Americans want to see that many of their tax dollars used to fund attack ads against candidates they like. (And frankly, I count myself among them.) Nor do I think that most Americans want tax money spent on marginal candidates – you might as well flush that money down the loo – yet this would undoubtedly happen in a public financing system. I suspect most Americans think that their tax dollars are better spent on education, health care, the usual suspects (or even – gasp – a tax cut). And again, I count myself among them.
Yet something must be done about the corrosive effect of money in politics. And everyone knows that a big part of the problem is the cost of buying mass media advertising. So here’s a really good idea that has been kicking around for a while, and that needs to be re-upped in the current discussion:
The Case for Free Air Time
By Paul Taylor, Alliance for Better Campaigns, and
Norman Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise InstituteNew America Foundation
June 1, 2002
In our democracy, speech is free but communication is expensiveâand never more so than during the campaign season. As the cost of political communication keeps rising, the competitive playing field of campaigns keeps tilting toward candidates who are wealthy or well-financed. The most effective way to make campaigns more competitive is to ensure that the less well-financed candidate at least has the seed resources to get a message out by creating a system of free air time on broadcast television. The broadcast airwaves are not only the most important communications medium for politics and democracy, they are also a publicly owned asset. Broadcasters, who earn huge profits from this public resource, pay the public nothing in return for its use. It is time for the public to reclaim a share of the airwaves we collectively own to strengthen our democracy.
To best achieve this goal, a free air time system should: 1) require television and radio stations to devote a reasonable amount of air time during the campaign season to issue-based candidate forums such as debates, interviews, and town hall meetings, and 2) require stations to pay a small user fee for the airwaves to provide qualifying candidates and parties with vouchers to run a reasonable number of free ads in the period before an election. These requirements could be imposed on the broadcast industry as a reasonable part of the seven-decade-old public interest obligation broadcasters have pledged to fulfill in return for the free use of the increasingly valuable public airwaves. Or they could emerge as part of a new compact between the public and commercial licensees that better fits a 21st century concept of how best to allocate the airwaves.
You can read the whole 26-page paper at this link.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) backed this idea in 2002. So it’s not a total political non-starter. And it seems to me it’s an experiment well worth trying – it would go a long way toward leveling the playing field between wealthy and non-wealthy candidates, yet it would not entail a massive diversion of scarce public dollars toward a campaign financing system that I rather doubt will work very well.
Thoughts?
I personally think this would be a very good thing to experiment with in the near future. A big problem for relatively new canidates is that ‘necessary evil’ of fundraising but how can you raise the funds without being able to send a message out to people? Its almost as if this current system is setting up first time canidates to fail. Unless you have your own money to initially deposit into your account, people will not donate when they see you are a new canidate with a small amount of money. Something just seems….undemocratic about that. Shouldn’t we allow any and all canidates to have the oporitunity to get their message out there so that the best one wins?
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I also wholeheartedly agree with you about not using tax money to fund these. I really do NOT want to see my tax dollars going towards an attack ad when schools are being shut down and many needed public programs are being completely underfunded.
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My next thought is would broadcasters really be willing to do this as a public interest obligation or do you think they would expect something from the government in return?
Part of the reason programs are underfunded is because of the corporate looting, like our Medicare Part D, that is a result of special-interest financing of campaigns. If taxpayers don’t pay for campaigns, then they won’t own politicians. Someone else will. If you pay for a politician, you bought a politician. You just can’t get around the essential conflict of interest in our current system — free TV or not.
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That being said, I agree that it’s time to remind broadcasters who owns the airwaves.
The savings will trump the amount we spend IMHO.
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But any comprehensive campaign finance reform MUST include taking back the public airwaves and give equal access to all candidates for advertising.
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It might be nice if we got a half decent news media back too…
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This morning I watched CNN (I felt slimy) and they mentioned Bush’s scheduled two-day spinfest in touting his renewable energy plan. Nothing about how the federal energy research facility he’s going to visit today had to lay off 35 scientists and lab assistants a few weeks ago because of budget cuts. And how, miraculously, the Dept of Energy “found” $5M just in time to hire them back before Bush showed up.
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Nothing about that. Just “he says we have to get off our addiction to oil.”
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Lordy is CNN a waste of bandwidth.
…make it less expensive to run! Money will NEVER leave politics. Money and politics are a fact of life.
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But if campaigns were less expensive, then candidates would not have to spend so much time fundraising and create the appearance (at the very least) of being bribed.
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The argument that TV stations are using public frequencies and therefore should be obligated for the public good to provide free TV time should be extended to radio stations and beyond. For example, local phone and cable companies are given local franchise rights to make profits (local phone more regulated that cable) so they should provide free local calls and local cable time. The post Office is a quasi public function and they should provide free local delivery of campaign literature. This would drive down costs of not only national elections, but the frigging state reps races that are costing $50,000, $100,000 and even higher.
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Yes, limits have to be placed and ballot requirements–like signatures–need to be tougher, to prove the candidate or party deserves public resources. And I have no doubt that abuses will develop. But I am confident that these abuses will come no where near hurting our system of democracy than what is happening now with the constant pursuit for money–even with our very best candidates.
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Never mind that we’re turning into a system of government where only the very rich can afford to run for office.
I was happy to read this post and it’s comments to discover that many of us have moved away from public financing of campaigns and the so called “Clean Elections” schemes that dominated Massachusetts politics a few years ago.
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The Governement working with owners of TV stations is a much better idea than ever allowing some airhead to have access to the public treasury through public financed campaigns. The now defunct CE law allowed nominal candidates access to tens thousands of taxpayer dollars to finance their bid for public office.
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The Congress and state Legislatures should work with broadcasters to implememnt a pilot program in which established candidates get reduced cost airtime in exchange for pledges that they willnot run negative ADs during the same elction cycle.
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This is an idea worthy of consideration. Thank you.
First, I’m not sure where the idea that money should have no place in politics comes from. That’s deep in our culture and history. The founders, as everyone knows, thought that people without property shouldn’t even be allowed to vote. However, accepting that we have moved on from 1789 in a variety of good ways; that what we want is the best, not the richest, leaders; that attracting support from people with property is not an important qualification for our leaders, I don’t see why a special tax on broadcasters is better, or even substantively different, than public funding from general revenues. “Frank’s” points are good ones: why not force radio stations, the USPS … heck, even blogs (since the internet was started with public money) to give free time to political candidates. Bottom line: this is just dodging the issue, which is public funding for elections.
Surely you jest – how is it, exactly, that free air time will cause fewer tax dollars to be spent on health care? And to call this a tax on broadcasters does the broadcasters a big favor, but it’s not really accurate. Yes, the broadcasters will suffer an opportunity cost of not being able to sell that air time to a paying client. But it’s not cash out of their pocket. And in any event, I am entirely in agreement with the notion that the airwaves are a public resource over which the government properly has a lot of control, and the broadcasters – who will make a shitload of money off of them with or without free air time for political campaigns – have some modest responsibility to see that the airwaves are at least occasionally used to serve the public interest, as defined by the people’s representatives in Congress. This goes for radio too – it’s the same principle. USPS, not so sure, but let’s start with this.
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No one’s saying (well, I’m not, anyway) that money has no place in politics. It always has, and it always will. But that doesn’t mean the government has no proper role in ensuring some modicum of fairness and level playing field in the electoral process.
Everything has a cost. If the state decides to impose a new tax on broadcasters by taking something valuable from them and giving it to someone else that is indeed substantively the same as spending general revenues. If broadcasters should pay more their spectrum, and if the best way to collect that extra tax (er, “fee”) is in the form of airtime, then why not take it, sell it, and use the receipts to pay for extra health care, or whatever? There’s a multi-billion dollar secondary market for airtime. Moreover, claiming this is not “cash out of their pocket” is not accurate. First, there are a lot of costs associated with broadcasting commercials. Second, as noted, the market for secondary airtime is sensitive. Try telling a lawyer who has a few extra hours that being required to donate that time pro bono to political candidates from now on — perhaps in return for the state-supported Bar monopoly? — is not a tax and is no big deal because it is not “cash out of their pocket.”
This proposal is precisely the same as insisting that mining companies and ranchers pay a fair rent to the federal government for their (highly profitable) use of federally-owned land. Broadcasters have no God-given right to use the airwaves as they see fit. They are squatters on a public resource, and it’s high time they were called on it.
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And you are simply wrong about this being indistinguishable from general revenues. Sure, it would be theoretically possible to raise general revenues in the manner you describe. But it would be (a) politically impossible, and (b) far less efficient toward achieving the goal of leveling the electoral playing field than the simple transfer I’m proposing.
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As to the poor broadcasters’ costs, I have no objection to either the gov’t or the candidates reimbursing the broadcasters for whatever modest actual cost is associated with running ads. The real barrier is the price of the airtime.
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Finally, as to pro bono, some states do require lawyers to donate time to legal services (though MA does not). Of course, no lawyer can be required to work for any particular political candidate, as that would be an obvious First Amendment violation (broadcasters, not being humans, should be allowed to raise no such objection). Nor do lawyers depend on a public resource like the airwaves for their livelihood. The state-sanctioned monopoly (which I’m against, as you know) helps keep up the fees, but lawyers depend on the market for their livelihood.
I don’t see why a special tax on broadcasters is better, or even substantively different, than public funding from general revenues.
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It’s not a special tax. Those who use the public airwaves get a public subsidy — they don’t have to pay “market value” for the use of the airwaves.
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If my neighbor wants to use my backyard as more room for his barbecue, he’s got to do it on my terms. If ABC, NBC, CBS, et al want to use tUSA’s airwaves, they’ve got to do them on tUSA’s terms.
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My neighbor had better offer me a nice cut of grilled meat and a beer. The broadcasters ought to provide some air time for the candidates.
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P.S. Walter Cronkite is also behind this idea. Google away.
I’m not sad to see the idea of publicly funded elections go by the wayside. Putting the government in charge of funding political speech is a dangerous idea.
Have Maine and Arizona experienced a crackdown in free speech? They’ve got public financing of elections. Are they suffering? I’d like to suggest they’re not.
In significant part, of course, because Tommy Finneran didn’t want it to.
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But to be frank, I remember Warren Tolman (who ran as a Clean Elections candidate, but who I was not supporting) running negative ads, and I remember it leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. I just don’t like it.
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Plus, do we have any information on how much AZ and ME are spending on these programs? And how much they’re therefore not able to spend on other pressing needs? Do they have universal health care? Do they have top-flight public schools?
But I think it’s important to keep Charley’s argument from earlier in this post in mind: public financing of campaigns can (IMHO) SAVE money in the long run because it makes politics less corrupt and makes it less likely that we will spend money on pork-laden energy and transportation bills, while making it more likely that we will get health care reform that cuts costs for all of us (do you think Travaglini would be so worried about the so-called “business community” if big businesses had no monetary leverage over candidates?).
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As for Tolman, I honestly don’t find it a big deal that he ran negative ads with Clean Elections money. I don’t think a public financing system should force candidates to say one thing or another — if they want to use public money to finance negative ads, the voters would be free under such a system to denounce them at the polls. One of the unfortunate realities of American politics right now is that voters tend to respond to negative ads. That trend is a somehwat depressing one, to be sure, but I feel that any public financing law will have enough work to do trying to solve the problem of money in politics without also bearing the burden of restoring civility to politics.
I didn’t mean to suggest that there should be any kind of restriction on the kind of ads that publicly-funded candidates could run. My point, rather, is that the only way to prevent public money from being used for negative ads is not to have public financing. Which is part of why I’m as skeptical as I am of it.
Well, we’ve still got free speech in this country, and that goes for politicians, too; but as Patrick says, it may have the effect that pols will tone down their antics, knowing that people feel the way David does.
I don’t think the effects will be observed in the short term — but in the long run, incumbents will game the system to control it (after all, they run the government). If “clean” election laws limit private spending (isn’t this part of the plan?) then political speech will slowly become the exclusive domain of the government.
I like the idea of opening the airwaves. In addition to McCain, Al Gore was a strong proponent. But one of the reasons free TV time may not solve as many problems as one might think is because a lot of campaign expenses are burned up in other ways…Paid staff, mailings, travel, etc. Especially in local and Congressional races, TV may not be a big factor. Here’s a link to a piece I wrote a while ago for The American Prospect… airing this issue out.
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http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/14/denison-d.html
A must-read for anyone interested in this issue and wondering why such a good idea hasn’t gotten very far.
Thanks. One comment:
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Candidates buy those 30-second spots because broadcast TV can deliver the largest audience.
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Not so sure about that. A big reason candidates continue to focus so much on TV, in MHO, is because that is where their camapign consultants make their commissions.
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I do agree all communications companies should pay for spectrum. Whether that should be given directly or indirectly to political candidates … pretty undecided.