Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“William Straus is wrongheaded.”

By

There, I said it. The Weekly Dig's Paul McMorrow double-dog dared me to. That's due to Straus's chuckleheaded compromise idea that the solution to money-dominated politics is … more money in politics. Straus is developing a proposal that would indeed call for more transparency for the funding of ballot initiatives, and more filing requirements for campaign committees, and zzZZZZZZzzzzz… and allow people to write campaign checks for $1,000, doubling the current $500 limit.  

 Here's the thing: Transparency is already no disincentive for moneyed interests to buy off our political system. Sure, I'd like to ban lobbyist contributions, for instance, since they're almost certainly funneling that money on behalf of someone else, and I'd like to know who that is. But so much of the legalized bribery of our system is hidden in plain sight — it's just taken for granted by our press and pols that This Is The Way Things Are Done. As Hillary might say, dollars are people too. Transparency is nice, but it's a soft, gummy substitute for real campaign finance teeth — and that means going after the money itself.

 I'm perfectly happy to let inflation eat away at the real value of the $500 limit, set in 1994. That's good — call it benign neglect. Heck, we didn't adjust our liability fines since the 19th century — why should we be so eager to change this law, except that obviously $1,000 is burning a hole in some folks' pockets, and they really want legislators to have it.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  2. Lobbyists are subject to the same contribution limits as everyone else.   What they often to is organize political events and have their clients, friends, partners, and other hangers on contribute.  I don't see any way to ban this, either as a practical matter or under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

    • There are plenty of other countries where there is a limit on candidate spending, who are looking at Constitutionla freedoms not much different than ours.  It would be a harsh break from precedent, but its not inherently a limit on free speech.

    • I don’t see any way to ban this, either as a practical matter or under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

      <

      p>
      Donating money to a candidate is not speech.  Openning your mouth and articulating is speech.  Publishing a newspaper is press (indeed, more than a few newspapers here in Europe were originally organs of political parties).  In both, the listeners or readers knew who the speakers or publishers were speaking or publishing on behalf of.  With the mishmash in the US, you have no idea who or what the lobbyist or whatever is working on behalf of.

      <

      p>
      As far as I’m concerned, ban all legalized bribery.  If someone wants to campaign for a particular candidate, let him do it independently.  At least the “someone” will be known.  Whether anyone in the electorate wants to take that into account when casting his or her ballot is another matter.

      <

      p>
      The unfortunate thing is that that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so you will continue to have the corrupt systen in the USofA for a long time to come.

      • If giving someone money was speech, then most taxes would be an unconstitutional abridgment of our free-speech rights. Or is it only speech when you give it to a politician? đŸ˜‰

        <

        p>

        • If giving someone money was speech…

          <

          p>
          The point is to whom the money is given, and for what.  A point that you seem to have overlooked. 

          <

          p>
          I seriously do not where you get the obvious idea that taxing people for government services is speech.  Although, on the other hand, if you want to outlaw taxation for public schools, or institute a use tax for roads in the US, or institute a use tax for the military in the US, I’d be all in favor of it.  My taxes would go down considerably, sine I make little use of any of them.

          <

          p>
          /sarcasm

  3. Basically, it protects incumbents, because it makes it that much harder to raise the money needed to mount a respectable challenge.  Incumbency is enough of an advantage; do we have to give them another one?  At some point, by the way, really low contribution (and expenditure) limits are unconstitutional.  Our unusually low limits probably aren’t there yet, but they’re close.

    <

    p>
    I’ll see your $500 and raise you $1,000, Rep. Straus.  You go.

    • Since both challenger and incumbent have the same limits, how do higher limits help the challenger? That doesn't make any sense.

      Incumbents have the institutional advantage, having already won a race. Special interests would rather buy them off, rather than go with the challenger and risk the relationship.

      In any event, show me one single example where higher limits (not self-financing) helped a challenger.

      • that’s obviously unanswerable, since one cannot compare a particular race with the same race where the limits were different.  So I’ll ignore it.  đŸ™‚

        <

        p>
        To the general point: it’s likely that an incumbent has built up a warchest over the years of being in office, and can draw on that warchest to win reelection.  The challenger is much more likely to need to raise a lot of money fast.  The lower the limits, the harder that is to do.  Also, I’d venture that it costs less to persuade voters to reelect the incumbent than it does to persuade them to change their luck.

        <

        p>
        So: the challenger probably needs more money to win the race than does the incumbent, almost certainly has much less time in which to raise it, and has no warchest on which to draw (putting aside the personal wealth factor).  Ergo, higher individual contribution limits help the challenger.

        <

        p>
        Finally, as to the “special interests”: remember, corporations cannot give money to a campaign.  Only individuals can give money.  (PACs can give money too in some circumstances, but we’re talking about individual contribution limits.)  So be sure to carefully define what you mean when you say that “special interests” are “buying off” a candidate.

        <

        p>
        Justice Breyer’s opinion striking down Vermont’s lower-than-ours contribution limits is an interesting read on this subject.  One of his central points:

        <

        p>

        Nonetheless, as Buckley acknowledged, we must recognize the existence of some lower bound. At some point the constitutional risks to the democratic electoral process become too great. After all, the interests underlying contribution limits, preventing corruption and the appearance of corruption, “directly implicate the integrity of our electoral process.” McConnell, supra, at 136 (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet that rationale does not simply mean “the lower the limit, the better.” That is because contribution limits that are too low can also harm the electoral process by preventing challengers from mounting effective campaigns against incumbent officeholders, thereby reducing democratic accountability. Were we to ignore that fact, a statute that seeks to regulate campaign contributions could itself prove an obstacle to the very electoral fairness it seeks to promote.

        • to build up that warchest with higher limits. This should be obvious.

          Also, I'd like to know how Breyer would move from his assertion that there could be a limit that's too low, to actually arriving at a specific figure. What's the formula? Isn't it always going to be arbitrary?

          • the point is that the incumbent has a warchest, and the challenger doesn’t, so they’re not starting from the same place.  That should be obvious too.  And you haven’t responded to my other points, esp. that the incumbent likely needs less to win, yet has more on hand.

            <

            p>
            As for Breyer, if you’d “like to know how” he’d resolve the case, why not read the opinion?  đŸ˜‰

            <

            p>
            Finally, careful about arguing that the cutoff is always “arbitrary.”  That’s basically Scalia’s position, and he’s been arguing for years that all contribution limits are unconstitutional.  I have some sympathy with that view, but I’m guessing that you don’t!

            • “esp. that the incumbent likely needs less to win, yet has more on hand.”

              I think that's irrelevant to whether contribution limits should be x or 2x, since they apply to both incumbent and challenger. I said that. The incumbent will always have a built-in advantage, we agree.

              The question is how much money do you want sloshing around the system; how much influence do you want dollars to have, as opposed to people. I say that lowering the dollar:person ratio decreases the importance of dollars, and increases that of people. IOW, in a low-contribution environment, it becomes more important to organize a really potent, “people-powered” campaign based on social capital rather than money capital. That's essentially healthy for democracy.

              Why didn't I read it? Because it's long, and I'm not a lawyer. Anyway, having read it I don't find it particularly enlightening. Breyer says on one hand that it ought to be up to legislatures to make the empirical judgement of “how much”, and then he goes on at great length to say why that shouldn't be. And as I've said, there's no reason to think that higher campaign contribution limits actually help challengers.

              And correct me if I'm wrong, Scalia's view is that limits are an unconstitutional abridgement of free speech, an idea for which I have no use for whatsoever. His concern that limits are “arbitrary” is irrelevant: it shouldn't be up to the court to decide.

              IOW, phooey on Breyer and Scalia both.

              • we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.  Just a couple of parting shots.

                <

                p>

                • Yes, contrib limits apply to incumbent and challenger.  But campaigns have certain fixed costs that are not a function of the contribution limits — the cost of hiring staff, printing leaflets, mailing, etc., are the same regardless of whether the limit is $200, $500, or $1,000.  Let’s call that fixed amount x.  In order to run a viable campaign, then, the candidate must be able to spend x dollars.  Lower limits means it takes more time to raise x dollars.  Because an established incumbent almost certainly has extra cash kicking around from the last couple of races (not to mention built-in advantages like franking, which I believe MA legislators retain), it just seems obvious to me that by making it take longer to raise x, you’re helping cement in place the advantages of incumbency.
                • You’re right — in part — about Scalia’s view.  But a significant part of his objection is that if there’s a point at which limits create a constitutional violation, that point is essentially arbitrary because it is selected by the Court, and Scalia would say that courts have no business drawing such distinctions.  You’d say they should be out of that business because all limits are OK; he’d say they should be out of that business because all limits are problematic.  But you both agree that courts shouldn’t be drawing distinctions between limits that are OK and limits that aren’t.
                • Re “phooey on Breyer and Scalia both,” you have to deal with the Supreme Court you have, not the Supreme Court you want or wish you had.

                • The single worst thing about progressive campaign finance reform, aside from taxpayer funded election campaigns, is that it treats all districts as equal.

                  But it costs a lot more to buy an ad in the Boston Globe than the North Adams Courier.  Same with other media – on Cape, radio stations don't ACCEPT political ads, and there IS no television.

                  I propose a spending cap, not a donation cap.  Make it the median (not average) of the last three races for the seat.  That way, a candidate in Sturbridge will be capped at a lower rate than Newton, and the spending will be more realistic.

                  Also – since legislative candidates now MUST file on-line, make them monthly, or even weekly, filers.  That way, opponents can see the threshhold approaching, and can help enforce the cap.

                  If somebody wants to 'speak' to me to the tune of $10,000 – go for it.  But if he's a convicted felon, it would be immediately known.  If you want to buy one billboard, that's fine.  If you want to send 3,000 postcard mailings, that's fine too.  What ever you want, apportion resources as you will – under the cap.

                  David – don't tell me that free speech precludes spending caps; if you can have a donation cap, why not a spending cap?

                • But the Supreme Court just did.  Expenditure limits, as I’ve said before, are toast in light of the Randall case.

                  <

                  p>
                  I’m all for the increased transparency of on-line filing that you mention.  But at present, there’s no constitutional way to enforce an expenditure cap.  Sorry.

                • …the Constitution is static.  It is the things to which the Constitution purportedly applies that are changing.

                  <

                  p>
                  BTW, did you know what was in interstate commerce are not only goods, but also people?  This is, of course, a reference to the 1964 civil rights act, which was based on the interstate commerce clause.

                • in the ’70s.  The Court has had repeated invitations to reconsider expenditure limits and other aspects of it.  Not happenin’ anytime soon.

  4. …I’d make a pun about it.  “Strauss” auf Deutsch means “Ostrich” which, of course, is known for having its head in the sand.

Archives