Site Presented By
Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
To the several people who suggested that the "anonymous donations" could be subverted by simply giving some precise amount (say, $9,821.63) as a signal of the source of the donations: you're misunderstanding the mechanism being used. Rather than hitting the candidate's coffers all at once, the donation would be broken up into chunks (say, $25 each), which would be donated over the course of several days. Hopefully, that will be enough to make sure that no individual donation source can stand out from the crowd, even if the donor tells the candidate when they donated.
I like the idea of weakening the power of corporate money. But I object to the idea of doing so by swamping them with public money. Unless the incentive for big donors is very sharply reduced, the campaigns still get incredibly expensive, and I don't think that expensive, flashy campaigns are good for us. Of course, most everyone knows that TV time is the primary expense for congressional and presidential races. They also know that these thirty second spots do almost nothing to improve discourse or inform voters.
If we could pass some law making TV advertising less attractive, it would do a lot to drain the swamp of politics of the brackish water of money, thus eliminating the bloodsucking mosquitos of special interests, and freeing us from the malaria of... okay, stupid analogy. The point is, TV advertising is what makes campaign contributions a big deal. An outright ban or limit on the amount of campaign advertising stations can carry would probably be found unconstitutional, which is a shame. In fact, given the current court, I would be surprised if it supported any limitations on big business' right to buy elections. The best I can think of is a law that required the government to give a dollar to every opponent for every dollar that a given candidate spent on TV advertising.
My other fear of this proposal is that, even if the proposal does make donations by big businesses less effective, they'll just raise their contributions until the overall effect is the same. If a few million will get your industry tens of billions of dollars in favorable legislation and subsidies, that's a huge return on a tiny investment. If they suddenly find themselves having to put $10 into the system to get the same results they could with $1 before, they'll find a way to funnel that money in, unless the laws are tightened up, and more tightly enforced.
While I think I could support some version of this proposal, I'd still like to see something more akin to the public financing laws that exist in many states. Shorter races, more support for serious discussion (public debates, voter information drives, etc.) and a more level playing field would all be the best. But I don't think I could reject this plan if it had a good chance of passing. Any real reform would be good, because of the chicken-and-egg nature of such reforms: if the current system keeps the current legislators in power, they're not going to vote to overturn that system.
One possibility: a few individual states could band together and implement something like this without national legislation. Say that four or five states got together and created a fund that any voter in those states could access. As a voter in one of those states, I could direct that $25 from the fund be given to the presidential candidate of my choice. The advantage: no national legislation needs to be passed. Instead, it would rely on individual states' actions, and those individual states would have an interest in having greater sway in presidential races. For example, if my home state of Utah did this, maybe a candidate or two would stop by to encourage ordinary people to direct their contributions to them instead of to the other guy. I mean, with half a million voters at $25 each, that's... carry the three... not chump change.
Other states would feel obligated to join in. After all, if Utah is doing it, that's a lot of Red State money flowing into the race. Maine might join the coalition just to provide a counterbalance.
On a tangential note: I've noticed that a lot of interesting proposals for changing national politics rely on individual state action. For example, if California decided to always give its 55 electoral votes to whichever candidate won the popular vote, it would effectively render the electoral college moot, and turn the entire national race into a nationwide popular vote.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
Salon headlines in your mailbox
