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Other topics addressed in this forum:
How campaign finance reform is handled in other countries.
The power of political action committees (PACs) and if, and how, that power should be regulated.
The courts' role in campaign finance reform
Speaker Gingrich's comment that there is too little money in the system
What Senator Bill Bradley plans to do about campaign finance reform after leaving the Senate.
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A question from Larry D. Doores of Warren, RI: Please put the current situation into historical perspective.
I don't mean 50 years, I mean 10-15-20 years. Clearly, the "reforms" that established the PAC system were not effective to accomplish their goals and have, it seems, given much more access (via an ability to contribute huge amounts at special functions and in special ways established for that purpose)to multi-nationals and other large contributors.
What difference has it actually made in the way things are done? Have we learned anything? How much has campaign financing as presently practiced changed the way things are done vis 15,20,25 years ago? Are any changes being discussed going to improve our government?
Thanks.
Ellen Miller responds:
Whether or not it's true that those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it, it seems obvious that there is much to learn from history. One thing we need to learn with respect to the financing of U.S. elections is that reform is not a matter of returning to some golden period of democratic bliss when elections were fair and government served everyone's interests equally. Such a period has never existed. This means that those bent on overhauling the current election finance system have to first imagine, and then bring about, an entirely new way of paying for campaigns -- that is, a new relationship between private money and public politics. Unfortunately, there are no good models to return to.
For some this may be sobering news, but if real reform is ever to be successful, we need to know what we're up against -- in this case, a 200-year tradition in which election campaigns have always been privately financed and private money has always been the medium of political democracy. On a more positive note, an awareness of the nature and results of previous reform efforts, however unsuccessful, cannot help but inform and strengthen future efforts.
A turning point in campaign finance history took place as a result of the scandalous "Watergate election" of 1972, in which President Nixon's re-election committee received millions of dollars in secret, and often illegal, donations from, among others, Robert Vesco ($200,000 cash delivered in an attache case), Howard Hughes ($100,000 contribution purportedly via a locked safe deposit box belonging to Nixon's long-time friend, Bebe Rebozo), Clement Stone ($73,000 reported, $2 million unreported) and, according to a 1974 Senate Select Committee, "at least 13 corporations" and their "foreign subsidiaries" (who made over $780,000 in "illegal corporate contributions").
However, the changes that occurred -- brought on by new, post-Watergate reform legislation -- had little impact on the overall shape of campaign finance. The channels through which money flowed were altered: more money than before came through political action committees (PACs); the practice of "bundling" smaller- size PAC and individual contributions became commonplace; and wealthy contributors started making six-figure "soft money" contributions to state and local parties as a way of getting around the limits on contributions to federal candidates. But the sources of money upon which candidates are dependent today remain essentially the same as before Watergate.
Reacting to the rising costs of federal campaigns, largely due to media expenditures, Congress passed new legislation in 1971 -- the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). But the really ambitious attempts to revamp campaign finance came in the wake of the 1972 Watergate scandals. With the FECA Amendments of 1974 and 1976, Congress set strict limits on contributions and expenditures, created a system of partial public financing for presidential campaigns, and established an independent agency, the Federal Election Commission, to monitor and enforce tough new disclosure requirements. The reformers of the day, led by a new and aggressive citizens lobby, Common Cause, had high hopes for eliminating much of the influence of big-money contributors and creating a more level playing field for federal candidates.
Unfortunately, the results fell far short of their expectations. This was partly due to the Supreme Court's 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling on the constitutionality of the new provisions. The Court let stand the limits on the size of contributions and the spending limits for presidential candidates who accepted public funds, but it declared that limits on campaign expenditures, on individuals' contributions to their own campaigns, and on "independent expenditures" (not coordinated with any candidate's campaign) were unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment's guarantee of "free speech." The remaining restrictions -- on contributions from individuals, political parties, and political action committees (PACs) -- did not succeed to any significant degree in putting challengers on a financial par with incumbents (some critics argued that it did just the opposite) nor in reducing elected officials' dependence on big-money campaign contributors. In effect, the FECA Amendments simply re-channeled money from the same sources into different pipelines -- especially the PAC pipeline. As a direct result of the legislation, the number of PACs, particularly corporate PACs, exploded after 1974.
The "Watergate reforms" of the 1970's succeeded in ending the days of unregulated, free-wheeling, under-the-table campaign finance at the federal level, and instituted for the first time a system of reporting and disclosure that at least provides accurate information regarding the sources and uses of much of the money in federal elections. At the same time, however, these reforms only served to sanitize, rationalize, and legitimize the same old system of privately-financed federal elections dominated by wealthy individual and corporate contributors. This system is still in place today.
It's not that the reforms of the past were not worthy, it is the fact that they did not go far enough to solve the problem.
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