In response to the many strong comments, and Pam Wilmot’s detailed post, I have to retract. The Prez seems to have given me some campaign finance gold, and I missed the ethics coal stuck in the bill.
I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the Senate President (I remember ‘ka-ching’), but today, she’s my hero.
Yesterday, Senate Ethics Chair Fred Berry and Senate President Murray released their first take on ethics reform legislation. Warning: the Globe missed the lead, trying to emphasize a Senate President v. Governor angle, rather than the actual good work going here.
The bill strengthens the hands of ethics investigators and bans all contributions from lobbyists.
This is an important step. Now, the devil is in the details. What about the contributions lobbyists bring in from other people in big, fat envelopes? It would be great to see what the experts at Common Cause and MassINC and MASSPIRG have to say on this, but I’m also interested in you guys, the blogosphere. I think this bill could help a lot. Will it? What amendments should strengthen it when it hits the Senate floor or goes to conference?
Donations from lobbyists are not the problem. And here’s why.
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p>Let’s say I am the CEO of BMG Enterprises. I have hired Charley the Lobbyist. We want to thank Sen. David for his support on a bill giving tax breaks to blogs.
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p>Charley the Lobbyist can only give Sen. David $200. Maybe he rangles a few of his other lobbyist buddies to show up at a fundraiser and they donate a couple hundred more dollars.
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p>I, however, as CEO of BMG Enterprises can give Sen. David $500. And so can my wife. And my kids. And my COO. And my CIO.And my 6 Vice-Presidents. And my 12 managers. And my secretary. And my janitor.
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p>Now what’s the problem…the $200 Sen. David receives from Lobbyist Charley? Or the $10,000 he receives from employees at BMG Enterprises?
How many registered lobbyists are there? What was the total “take” in 2006?
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p>So far as I can tell, there are 200 legislators up in 2006 and about three dozen county/region/state -wide elected officials.
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p>What percent of their receipts were from lobbyists? 1%? 10%? 50%? I have no idea, but the key isn’t to add up the numerator and add up the denominator — you’ve got to make this calculation 230ish times (plus more for opponents, primary opponents, etc — no more than 500 total I’d expect, and perhaps around 300). Are there any candidates who raked in a huge percentage of their campaign coffers from lobbyists? If not, what problem is this trying to solve?
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p>Don’t get me wrong — I’d err on the side of further restrictions on lobbyists, not fewer restrictions, but still: is this the most effective way to get better government? IS it effective at all?
Did we ever end up taking care of that “personal gift exemption” whereby some CEO or real estate developer or whoever could give up to $10,000 to an elected official so long as it could not be proven to be payment for a specific official act? The “Angelo Scaccia exemption” that Diane Willkerson was going to try to use as a partial defense against the bribery charges?
The Senate, like the House before it, misses the key issue around ethics reform, the gifts. We all know that they get them, “the little perks of being in office” and Fred Berry, the SP caved in and failed to pass a true reform bill.
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p>SSP makes a valid point about the exponential nature of campaign contributions, but I don’t see how you address that unless you want to say people should not have a right to support a candidate with money. We allow for contributions and you, your wife, your kids, you senile grandmother all have a right to have your “voice” heard. (I am still amazed that money is protected as “free speech”).
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p>Moreover, this bill will simply serve to protect the incumbents by weakening the Party apparatus in the Commonwealth. Closing the “loophole” on party contributions (why the Senate can’t close any other loopholes, I don’t know) serves only to ensure that contributions must be made to the specific candidate and mean that the parties will have less ability to fund challengers, who already have a hard time rasing money.
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p>So the Sen Prez.’s best move, judging by some of her others, sure but that doesn’t make this bill “good”.
I would like to ban contributions from anyone but individuals, and hold that to $500.
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p>No unions, no activist groups, no PAC’s – and no lobbyists. Why can unions give contributions, and not busineses?
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p>And, of course, no warchest. By December of an election year, all monies must be donated to charity, or the Party. And reported to OCPF.
where the Republican Senators stand on contributions. Nothing on Scaling the Hill.
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p>On donating to charity, I would think that a lot of contributors would have issue with that, they gave their hard earned money to a candidate, if they wanted to give to a charity or the party they would have done so themselves.
Say, 20% of your warchest has to be paid to the state every year. It won’t amount to much revenue for the budget, and you can be sure that it would lead to a dramatic increase in the number of holiday greetings cards politicians send, but it would help get at what Peter is fishing for — making it easier for a challenger because the incumbent doesn’t have more money than [deity] entering the race.
could potentially harm the Democratic hegemony on the hill?
to point out why exactly such a war chest tax would never pass.
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p>For us, the unwashed masses, it’s ethical. For the elected officials, it’s job security first. Err…politics.
Elected officials wouldn’t vote for it because they think their party would be hurt, they’d fail to vote for it because it would hurt their own chances of winning.
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p>So, yeah, job security first… but this isn’t a partisan matter.
I want my legislators to have to hustle, every election. If they don’t have to sweat a reelection, they’re not working hard enough.
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p>It’s true, it could lead to legislators spending even more time fund raising, since they’d have to do that much more to build up a war chest. But it’s also true that just as much as it means Dems could get knocked off by GOPers in the general, it also means Dems could get primaried by better Dems, and that’s the outcome I’m most excited about.
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p>It’s my observation* that younger Democratic legislators are more focused on the issues I personally care most about — energy, environment, and equality.
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p> * There are plenty of counterexamples, but I expect that the legislators match the political interests of their age groups, and there’s no question that younger people are more likely to prioritize climate change and gay rights than older citizens.
Although corporate contributions are prohibited, pro-business groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts can and do contribute heavily to candidates.
Why is limiting campaign contributions to individuals fair? Doesn’t that give individuals with a lot of discretionary income more political influence than those with less?
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p>If individuals are allowed to contribute, then groups of low income individuals who want to pool together small amounts of money should be allowed to as well.
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p>Or we could limit the maximum donation to $20.
Why should 100 people with $5 combine? Why not just make 100 contributions of $5 each?
People are unlikely to think a $5 contribution will matter unless they know others are doing it. But a good fundraising operation probably could solve that problem.
JHG – my individual cap is $500. Right now, Waren Buffett can give through a PAC, a Party AND as a Person. A $500 individual cap eliminates two of the three ‘P’s.
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p>If you think for a nanosecond you can get leigslators to AGREE to $20, be my guest. But cutting away non-profits, unions, advocacy groups, business PAC’s, etc. would be enough of a challange, and $500 is a familair limit.
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p>This TRIES to be ‘reality-base’ commentary, after all…
Warren Buffet can give $500 as an individual in MA. How much can he give (in MA) through PAC? Through party?
HERE is a chart.
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p>So, Warren can give $500 to Fred. He can give $5,000 to the state committee, and $5,000 to each town committee, and the state can give $3,000 and each town can give $1,000. Per calendar year, for those familiar with the New Year’s Eve gambit.
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p>$500 individual only would keep a LOT of the mother’s milk in the tata.
Instead of saying no PAC money, just limit the money a PAC can give to an individual candidate to $500 (done). Limit state and ward/town/city/party committee donations to an individual candidate to $500 (instead of $3k/1k).
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p>As it is now, Mr. Buffet can give:
$500 to the candidate
$500 to the PAC which can give $500 to the candidate
$5,000 to state committee which can give $3000 to the candidate
$5,000 to any more local committee which can give $1000 to the candidate.
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p>Total: $500 + $500 + $3000 + $1000 = $5,000. But, in doing so, he “uses up” the donation limits. So Mrs Buffet (or Mr Gates or whomever) can now effectively give $500 to the candidate, but can’t double dip on the PAC or the committees. Of course, we can always create more committees and PACs (or can we?).
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p>In any case, simply reducing the limit from committees from $3k/$1k to smaller numbers would go a long way methinks. Limiting the amount people can give to committees would then still be useful, but not as useful since the money has nowhere to go at that point.
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p>I don’t see the need to set limits to $0 — just keep the limits really low and the money shuffle game won’t be able to absorb more than one $10,000 donation a year.
And why not? They are the mushrooms of politics.
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p>A strict individial limit would eliminate duplicate giving via groups, PAC’s, and advocacy groups (who should be registered as lobbyists, BTW – they lobby about legislation constantly, and saying their hearts are pure doesn’t make they one whit differnet from AIM or MTA).
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p>Make the limit One Dollar – and you’ll have 20,000 affinity groups in a New York minute. It isn’t the limit, it’s the sources – and until the individual becomes the source, incumbents will game whatever system is used. But it’s hard to manufacture new people…(well, maybe not hard, but time consuming – at least nine months..)
The problem is that money isn’t distributed evenly and those that have more of it can contribute more of it. That’s the case with an individual limit unless the limit is very low.
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p>What’s wrong with people combining their money to support a candidate they want? It’s the only way people with less money can get meaningful funds to their candidate.
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p>Of course it means the group that organizes them to contribute the money then has influence with the candidate. But if that group has the interests of the contributors at heart, what’s wrong with that?
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p>It would be best if money didn’t matter in politics. But until that happens, people with less money have to be allowed to combine their funds to be able to compete with people with more money.
I just don’t see a way out. The only fair solution is to give every candidate the same amount of money, but efforts to promote public financing haven’t been too successful
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p>2. Party giving or candidate giving, but no mix. A candidate with a surplus must give it to the town he/she lives in (at retirement, not annually).
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p>3. NO BUNDLING. No third party giving of any kind other than party donations allocated to candidates.
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p>4. Public officials can accept gifts, but gifts over a certain value ($100? $500?) must be reported to OCPF.
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p>But wait, there’s more …
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p>5. Candidates who qualify for the ballot are allotted X number of television hours at a specified rate. Candidates can buy more, but no candidate is excluded from TV advertising.
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p>6. Ditto with radio.
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p>That’s a start. You can’t entirely level the playing field, but you can make sure each team gets its turn at bat.
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do radio stations (not XM, but AM and FM) have the legal right to reject political advertising? After all, they’re using the public airwaves. As long as it meets the FCC standards (decency, etc), it seems to me that a radio station shouldn’t be allowed to reject a political advertisement.
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p>Which is not to suggest that you’re wrong — but that the radio stations using public airwaves shouldn’t have that veto power.
Interesting fact – in my area they USED to accept (I did dulcet radio commercials then). BUT when contested primaries began to happen locally, they decided that would be TOO MUCH political advertising, and they unilaterally declined.
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p>I wish they continued (I LIKE making commercials..) BUT – if its everybody, then I really can’t kick.
In this economy, I wonder if they’ll reconsider that policy.
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p>I like political ads, but then again I am a major geek.
The post can be found here.
How do you respond to these points from Common Cause in your touting of “best move ever”?
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p>Doesn’t sound “best” to me…..
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p>Process suggestion to AKingsley – paste at least some of the comment in the thread itself, so we don’t have to click to get the gist.
In response to the many strong comments, and Pam Wilmot’s detailed post, I have to retract. The Prez seems to have given me some campaign finance gold, and I missed the ethics coal stuck in the bill.
a) the Senate didn’t collectively try to make this a shot at the Governor. It’s infantile.
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p>b) the Senate didn’t completely flop on ethics, as pam so eloquently pointed out in the diary just frontpaged right above this one.