Public Campaign and Common Cause recently announced a $15 million lobbying campaign to push legislation implementing a system of taxpayer financed congressional campaigns. The lobbying groups, jointly called the noxiously-sounding Campaign for Fair Elections, released a TV ad today, which they plan to run in Denver, Seattle and Tallahassee (targeting Democrats who haven’t signed on to their proposal).
The Washington Post was even-handed in noting criticism of this recent lobbying effort: “We think a system where people support people they believe in rather than using taxpayer funds is the way to go,” said yours truly.
In fairness to the goo-goo crowd, FENA would not be as dreadfully wrongheaded as some taxpayer financing programs in states such as Arizona and Connecticut (which have both been ruled unconstitutional in court because they provide government funds, dollar for dollar, to level out speech). It’s similar to the presidential system, in that candidates would receive disbursements from the U.S. Treasury based on the amount of money raised from donors.
The Fair Elections Now Act (FENA), H.R. 1826 in the House and S. 752 in the Senate, would provide a 4-to-1 match on contributions of $100 or lower from in-state residents. Participating candidates would also receive a voucher for broadcast advertising. So, FENA isn’t blatantly unconstitutional-it’s just terrible policy. But don’t just take our word for it.
In May, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a follow-up report on taxpayer funding for political campaigns, as CCP noted. The report supplemented a GAO study from 2003, which found that the two states with full tax funding of campaigns—Maine and Arizona—enjoyed none of the promised benefits from those programs.
In evaluating electoral competition, GAO found no measurable changes in the number of candidates running per race (what it called “contestedness”). Nor did incumbent reelection rates decrease (in Maine the reelection rate was 88% before tax funding, 90% after; in Arizona it was 98% before and 97% after). As for the other benefits? There were no statistically significant increases in voter choice, or decreases in campaign spending or interest group influence from adopting tax funding for campaigns. GAO also could not find a voter turnout effect connected to tax funding.
Perhaps most interestingly, 17 out of 22 candidates interviewed by GAO said that state “clean elections” efforts didn’t change—or actually increased—the benefits enjoyed by incumbents. In addition, 13 of 22 candidates interviewed saw no change in interest group influence, and four more believed the influence of special interests had increased. Moreover, when GAO polled members of the public, their perceptions provide no support for the notion that tax funding increases public confidence in government.
As CCP Vice President of Policy Allison Hayward explained: “The lesson of both GAO reports is that, despite the relentless rhetoric of tax-funding supporters, subsidizing political campaigns doesn’t improve campaigns, or even how people feel about politics. Moreover, there are burdens imposed in these systems not considered by GAO, such as paperwork requirement to establish a campaign’s qualifications and government audits to inspect how campaigns used their funding. Tax funding systems also possess a fatal conceit by presuming that the state can calibrate how much funding is the right amount- an impossible task in a system where only some seats are competitive, there are vast differences in voter population per district, and campaigns will be adopting ever-changing technologies… The belief in reform through tax funding for campaigns is not based on fact. Like an article of religious faith, it is a belief that transcends proof.”
The Public Campaign/Common Cause campaign is also notable for its shameless hypocrisy. “Wall Street is spending money hand over fist on lobbying fees and campaign contributions to influence the policy-making process in Washington, DC,” Bob Edgar, the president and CEO of Common Cause recently said in a press release. So, Common Cause and Public Campaign are spending up to $15 million in undisclosed donations on a lobbying campaign to influence the policy-making process in Washington, D.C. These lobbying groups mentioned that Arnold Hiatt, the former CEO of Stride Rite Corp., is helping to fund the campaign, but they named no other donors. What makes these “reformers” so special that they can somehow spend millions of dollars from wealthy interests on public policy issues-but when other people spend money to petition their government it’s automatically corrupt?
FENA was introduced in March of 2009. It was a terrible idea then, as CCP explained in our policy analysis, “Fairly Flawed: Analysis of the 2009 Fair Elections Now Act.” It’s still a lousy idea.
Even prominent campaign finance “reformers,” such as Prof. Rick Hasen, are skeptical of this effort: “I’m sure I’ll get lots of email from unhappy readers for saying this, but if Congress is struggling on campaign finance disclosure, and the President is not behind FENA, and we are in an era of budget woes, who really thinks that FENA could get through Congress right now?”