You are offered an opportunity to comment at the bottom of every piece appearing in this blog. Matters being addressed here tend to be of a controversial nature. We’re not hearing much from the readership. For instance, do you want public financing of political campaigns, yes or no? If yes, how much do you think it would be worth? Please talk to us about that or any other matter. It’s important to us that you do.
Congressman Murphy of Connecticut says that access to a Congressman’s ear seldom results in a quid pro quo – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. I’ll give you this prize if you’ll vote for my legislation. Congressman Murphy says that makes it way too obvious, and the elected official who gets suckered into that arrangement isn’t going to last. But still, big bucks have clout. How so?
There are statutes at federal and state levels trying to limit the size of campaign contributions to individual candidates. Those limitations are sometimes successful, sometimes not. Generally speaking, there is little or no control on funds donated to third party groups.
Funds donated directly to candidates are “hard money’; funds donated to third party groups are “soft money.” The Supreme Court says money has first amendment rights and attempts to control the flow of money to political parties, PACS, unions or whatever cannot be imposed. It would be nice for the candidate if he could gather in some of that soft money, wouldn’t it? A lot of educated, intelligent, and motivated people try to make that happen.. They are paid to do things like that.
Allen Raymond, in his recently published book “How to Rig and Election” discusses the conversion of soft money into hard money. Raymond speaks of specific instances of that kind of money laundering. I’m not aware of anyone facing legal judgement for the act.
As a generality, soft money is controlled by the party apparatus. Look at Raymond’s history. He, like the Bushes, came from a New England family of old wealth, were given an opportunity of an excellent education, and went on to make his own mark in life. Raymond tried public relations, found it dull (try spending a couple years coming up with a suitable one-liner for a TV spot for some indifferent nostrum), and turned to politics for a juicier life. Went to a brand-new graduate school on political operations. Raymond didn’t want to be an elected official, he just realized there was a ton of money floating around out there and he could grab a chunk of it for himself as a for-hire operator.
In grad school they taught military science as the model for political operations – politics and war are synonymous, they said. Ethics and philosophy have damn all to do with it. What Raymond went to jail for (90 days in a federal pen – don’t feel too sorry for the lad) was because during the campaign that got John Sununu elected to the U.S. Senate, Raymond arranged for a telemarketer to flood the state Democratic headquarters to the extent that the phones were unusable, their get-out-the-vote effort never had an opportunity to get out the vote. John Sununu’s guys did get their voters out. Raymond was responding to orders from above (Republican National Committee), and like a true mercenary didn’t question them but did as he was told. When the FBI showed up, the RNC said “Who, us? We didn’t have anything to do with it,” which is why Raymond no longer speaks lovingly of his former bosses. He, like Scooter, was the fall guy. Unlike Scooter, Allen Raymond is singing.
At any rate, there’s a lot of soft money out there. It’s under party control. Public campaign financing will not change that. That money has free speech rights. Candidates know this and understand the significance of those funds.
There’s more, much more. A legislator has to bring home the bacon to his constituency. Tax money goes out, something needs to come back to justify that. To get a bill authorizing a public project in his district, the legislator must get it through committee(s), then it must be authorized for final vote by the majority leader. Party discipline can and does extend to ethical matters. Think the wars in the Arabian Gulf leave something to be desired? Leadership perhaps doesn’t. You better not voice your own opinions. Offend either the majority leader or the committee chairmen and your bills are dead in the water. So may be your election prospects unless you’re a John McCain Can public campaign financing do some good here? It might.
Legislative leadership is voted upon by members of the body. Anybody wishing to be a leader must satisfy those who elect him or her. Under special interest campaign financing and the flow of campaign money controlled by people outside the legislature, the membership must stay in the good graces of the leadership as well as their donors. But when a sufficient number of voter-owned legislators are in the body, their wishes must also be accommodated. It will change the flavor of a chamber. One of the results will be a softening of party discipline. A party must avoid offending too many voter-owned legislators. Which means that legislative leadership listens more to the legislators , less to donors. Big money loses clout..
With special interest funding. all a donor’s phone call to a legislator need do is remind the legislator where his money is coming from. No need to go into specifics on the phone call. Legislative leaders will tend to that, “encouraging” a particular vote..Should the legislator pay no heed, his ability to see legislation through may collapse and he may find it difficult to fund subsequent campaigns, or win elections even if he can (he might be opposed by a party backed candidate in the primary). But if there are several voter-owned members, individual legislators will enjoy the freedom to do as their conscience dictates. Can this happen?
Go back to the first piece I wrote on this subject. The Oregonian on 12/12/07 declared that finding a thousand people to sign a petition and provide a five buck contribution was beyond the means of candidates. On 12/24/07 they howled that the crowd of qualified voter-owned candidates was too great, nearly all if not all the candidates. It appears that an absolute majority of voter-owned councilors will govern Portland. Finding a thousand people in Portland to support voter-owned proved to be no particular problem. The public seems supportive, even to the extent of digging into their wallets to help.
Public financing of elections may prove Allen Raymond wrong when he said that candidates who observe ethical boundaries cannot be elected, that laws can be made only by cynics. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Next time: If it’s such a sweet deal, who can object?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 9:28 am and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.