Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Discussion # 4, Political Influence


The Munro Institute would like to thank our panelists for an engaging discussion today. Suffice to say that getting an inside look into campaign strategy by the strategists themselves is a rare look into the inner workings of our state’s political process.

This was the only panel to not be recorded by TVW, however, the video crew from Western Washington University recorded the session and it is now available at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23586902.

There were many highlights in the discussion. I generally try to feature at least one from each panelist, but I admit that I got behind in my notes today, and they are a bit sparse on specifics. Of note was the discussion regarding the actual percentage of voters that campaigns influence in order to win an election. Ron Dotzauer pointed out that campaigns need to convince the final 8-10% of voters in order to win most elections.

If there was a common underlying thread, it was the emphasis placed on the amount of money that is required for modern campaigns to function.

That being said, it was interesting to note that there seemed, to varying degrees, a general lack of support for the recent “Citizens United” decision which essentially gave corporations the same rights as private citizens regarding campaign donations. The panelists seemed to agree in theory that this and other various attempts at campaign finance reforms had weakened limitations to campaign spending rather than providing more restrictions.

If I understand their point of view, corporations now can donate more “soft money” to Political Action Committees, who are removed from any type of control by the various campaigns that they choose to support. When there were more direct donations to the campaigns themselves, there was a higher level of accountability, as the campaigns had to identify donors that gave over a specified amount of money.

In light of this discussion, what are your thoughts?

Should we allow campaign donations and spending to grow ever larger? Is this even a problem? Or do you feel that the increasing amounts of spending restrict access to government for the general public, and create a society where only those who can afford to spend lavishly on candidates get representation? If so, should we eliminate donations entirely and publicly fund campaigns with amounts of spending set by preset limits for local, regional, state, and national elections, taking all private, monetary influence out of campaigns? Is there some happy medium we as a nation or state could agree on?

If you feel campaign finance reform is necessary, please include ideas you may have on how to reform our current financing structure.

15 comments:

  1. I think it is shameful to allow unlimited amounts of money to finance campaigns without the person running for office not having to take responsibility for how that money is used in the campaign. Today, the gubernatorial candidate spoke a little on the topic and said the money going into the super pacs are not huge issues when I could not disagree with him more. Money, as the ancient philosopher and poet Hesiod, is the root of all evil. And the more money, the bigger the problem. I believe reform to the process is necessary to inhibit the secrecy of all of this transferring of money and who are the ones supporting the candidates. Washington State has put in an effort to make this process more transparent but nationally the problem grows. To find a solution to the growing problem, I would take a serious look at the ruling on Citizens United and what it now means for how elections are going to be run and if there is a greater risks of candidates being "bought." Disclosing where the money is coming from would be a start to preventing a huge scandal or even the idea of one. Another idea that was talked about during the panel discussion was giving the candidates the money directly to give them the responsibility and the "stank of the money," as Peter Callaghan put it when the topic was brought up in the next day's panel, and I totally agree with that perspective. Giving the people running for office the responsibility of how they spend the money and letting the public know who made those huge contributions to their campaign would make this process more transparent. On a side note, I think what I take issue with the most in this whole situation is that someone can put in a $400 million donation when there are kids in the U.S. and all over the world starving, that part is just ludicrous to me... Running a campaign is expensive but if money is speech, and there seems to be a lot of speaking behind the scenes, then the people who are voting have the right to know who the candidates are listening to and who they are speaking for. To expand on that idea of money equaling speech and Marc's question about the public having access to government restricted, the more money, the louder you are, so in a way the general public contributing small amounts of money will be drowned out by private donors donating huge quantities of money, in my opinion. Many a politician might say that they don't see that happening but I am not so naive to totally believe that. It is hard to eliminate money from government, and capping the limits did not work, so disclosing who is donating and giving the responsibility of the money to the candidates hands would be an interesting way to solve this dilemma. Note, these are just some of the conclusions I have reached after listening to the panels, I plan to do my project on this subject matter and have a better informed opinion in a week.

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    1. I really enjoyed this post. So informative about how money does play a role and that if funding goes unchecked the corporate voice can drown out the voice of the grass root candidates. I think that this is definitely an issue and I agree with you. Particularly the part where you say "Giving the people running for office the responsibility of how they spend the money and letting the public know who made those huge contributions to their campaign would make this process more transparent." (Millard) Not only will it let the voters know who can responsibly handle money, the voters will also know who they are really voting for. Good post!

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    2. Michael, I would be interested what your "vision" of reform might take.

      Politicians represent their constituency. If they see their constituency as large donors to superpacs, then that is who will receive their attention.

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  2. I personally think that giving huge donations in campaigns is ridiculous. The corporations pay for the candidate that they think will greater increase their profit. So, the only view that is getting spread to the people is the view of the huge corporations that will give the corporations the greatest advantage. With money you may or may not win, but without it, you will surely lose. With massive amounts of donations given to candidates, these big time candidates can all but extinguish the opponents with their colossal amount of funding. I don't know if it is true that increasing the amount of spending creates a society where only the lavishly rich get represented. But I believe they are the only ones who will be able to even have a say!

    If we set preset limits on elections, I truly believe that corporations will find a way to endorse the candidate they want to win. A great idea is the one that Michael touched up on, which was letting the candidates be responsible for how they spend the money and letting the public know who made the contributions for their campaign. Because I think that knowing who the candidate is putting at a higher priority between myself and the corporations will definitely be a deciding factor as to who I will vote for.

    I think that a medium is a smart idea. If all candidates are given a set amount of funding that cannot be reimbursed will allow and also force the candidates to speak to the people, and let us hear what they have to say. I don't care about the interests of the corporations, and I think that taking monetary influence out of campaigns is making a fair fight for both candidates. And that is something we all can enjoy!

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    1. So, public funding of elections with no private donations. Each level of office would get a different level of funding? Then we would have to limit pacs as well, which immediately raises first amendment issues. It is a tough issue.

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  3. This is an interesting perspective to say the least. I agree with you in that there is a lot to be said in cutting funding to campaigns but taking out all of the money is a a naive thought. We live in a world where corporate heads nothing but time on their hands to come up with ways to get around laws and regulation. Each election year that there has been regulations or restrictions on amounts candidates can receive has only changed the way they receive the money. For example, the formation of pacs and super pacs were ways of getting around regulatory laws on campaign money. I enjoyed reading your ideas and would love to see the country go to a simpler way of campaigning maybe via skype or other usage of the technology at their disposal which is free I might add and more personal than TV Ads or other expensive advertisements.

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    1. this was meant to be a response to Jon Ramsey's blog post....

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  4. In light of the Allison’s argument, the director  of the Initiative-502 to legalize and tax marijuana, we all acknowledge that the threshold to get your initiative on the ballot is a strenuous process. As a result, to get over this threshold, money is an evident necessity, from paying your signature gatherers to getting your initiative message on air. However, sometimes the spending involved in campaigns can be ridiculous. I argue that campaign donations and spending should not grow larger. Eyman may disagree that the content of the initiative is more valuable than the money spent on an initiative, however, an initiative campaign still needs donation money;. Rep Reykdal emphasized that Eyman is receiving his large share of donations from oil and beer corporations that are outside of the state. Now for the citizens united decision,  this gives these corporations a green light to just support any campaign they deem appropriate. This I agree can be problematic, as they may create divides between those that cannot spend much on campaigns to those that have lavish spending. I really like the idea of having set limits at all levels for fixed spending. Setting a limit may provide incentive campaigns to budget themselves accordingly and such that they focus to follow adequate ‘selling’ strategies. Thus, this means that those with better experience in campaign strategies and budgeting, will perhaps perform better than those campaigns that are newly formed. As a result, strategy disparities may occur in the campaign process, where the ones with higher pristine may have experienced strategists, and those without any experience will be occupied in using trial and error strategies. In the end, corporations/large donors need to be specifically targeted to limit their assistance and donations. I am not in favor of the citizens united decision because it does not limit but rather it expands the voice of the wealthy in the political system. We can decentralize the large donors sovereignty by holding the campaign donors accountable to a donation limit.

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    1. I thought it was interesting that you brought up the topic of initiatives because the same issues of campaign spending surround this area of politics as well. I agree with what you seem to be saying that it is almost impossible to avoid money if you want to run a successful campaign--whether it is for an initiative or a candidate running for office. I thought your inclusion of Eyman's view--the content of the initiative is more valuable than the money spent--was an important counterpoint regarding money in politics and agree that this may be true but an initiative still needs money just to get a foot in the door.

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  6. You bring an interesting correlation of the concept of campaigns having more money and being ‘bought’ because the candidates may have a tendency to favor the interests of the donors than the general public. Often the money in initiative campaigns is disclosed--recall Rep. Chris Reykdal stated that large corporations were funding Tim Eyman’s campaign. I understand that you are in favor of giving the money directly to the candidate, however, that doesn't solve the citizens united issue. Meaning that the donors are still lavishing an abundant amount of money into political entities. To revise my proposal, I would suggest capping the limit and disclosing the campaign money to the public. Transparency is key, but I don't know how keen campaign leaders will be to adopt this mechanism. Seems like we have an issue at hand that needs to have a multilateral approach and one solution will not fit for all subset campaigning levels.

    Going back to your comment saying that the more money you have, the louder you are...is that completely true? What about Eyman’s argument that the content is what really matters not the amount of money spent in campaign advertisement? He did emphasize that his opponent spent $1.6 million on advertisements and trailed a stranded path during the elections. Also, if there is more transparency, how can we ensure people will be more educated? We ALSO would need to provide access to the transparent information regarding where the money is coming from in campaigns.


    Going back to your comment saying that the more money you have, the more louder you are...is that completely true? What about Eyman’s argument that the content is what really matters not the amount of money spent in campaign advertisement? He did emphasize that his opponent spent $1.6 million on advertisements and trailed a stranded path during the elections. Also, if there is more transparency, how can we ensure people will be more educated. We ALSO would need to provide access to the transparent information regarding where the money is coming from in campaigns.

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  7. I tr sounds like you acknowledge that campaigns of all types need money, but there is some level where donations should grow no larger. But how would you regulate that? Would you set a cost of living increase? Would you outlaw out-of-state donations for initiative? I would be interested in your ideas.

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  8. Like the panelist mentioned, up to this point is has been impossible to keep big money out of political campaigns. Every effort that has been made to thwart it has opened up another loophole for money to filter in. I think it would be difficult to pass legislation that would put preset limits on campaign spending, because like Marc mentioned, it would immediately bring up 1st amendment issues. The solution that makes the most sense to me is what the panelists agreed on--making candidates responsible for contributions to their campaign. If so-and-so corporation wants to donate a million dollars to a campaign it should go directly to the candidate, the donation should be published on public disclosure websites immediately and this way the candidate will be immediately responsible for explaining the donation.

    On the state level, I found Alex Hays idea for cutting jurisdiction sizes in half very intriguing. In this way, candidates no longer need the huge amounts of money to run successful campaigns, they can be more localized and candidates can simply going door-to-door to talk to constituents rather than spending lavish amounts of money of television advertising. He said people are against this because there is, especially in Washington, an aversion to "big government," but he argues that there are many more unelected bureaucrats and government officials than legislators. Initially this sounded like a great idea to me, but it also made me wonder if something like this would cause even more conflict among legislators who would be exposed to more issues by the constituents. Would this actually make less of a need for unelected bureaucrats or would there be more because of the increased amount of jurisdictions?

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    1. I agree that Alex Hays' idea of cutting jurisdiction sizes in half is really an interesting idea. If money was no longer an issue, I think many problems would be solved. I think it is important that we get back to the basics here with campaigning, and have a more personal feel with the candidates. Door to door campaigning I believe is a great way to get individuals who would typically not become involved in politics, involved!

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  9. There is no question that the initiative process is one that is in depth. So much goes into lobbying, signature collecting, and just getting an initiative on the ballot. Because of this intricate process, money has to be involved; none of this is free by any means. While this makes sense, insane amounts of money are spent on campaigning. While Time Eyman stated that voters don’t care who has more money, it’s who has the better ideas, I would disagree to a certain extent. Spending has gotten out of hand. Joni Balter used the example of the soda and candy tax and how a certain cookie was made with just flour and no sugar; she said this shows the influence of money. Allison Holcomb stated that you can’t get an initiative on the ballot without money. You need money for advertisements and countless other things, and I agree.

    Looking back at the panel on political influence, each campaign director admitted that money was important in an election, more so was Ron Dotzauer. He said “money may or may not make the election, but lack of money guarantees losing” (Dotzauer). He continued to say that state wide campaign is a business and how you manage your business determines if you win or not. “You find resources and you allocate them, find where you spend your time, then there is a one day sale” (Dotzauer).

    It is clear to see that a lot of money is involved, but I don’t think it should. This leaves the power in the hands of elitists and creates a separation of power that is economically divided. I think big corporation donations to these candidates are wrong. With big money involved, it no long comes down to ethics, morals, and bettering society as a whole, but who has the most money. With money comes campaigning advertisements that involve bashing the other party and mudslinging. If money wasn’t an issue, I think the process would a little more ethically balanced.

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