[EL] Efficacy of Campaign Finance Reform

[Robert Wechsler]

Please don't limit your considerations to policy outcomes, or even to 
immedate outcomes. Campaign contributions are not given only to 
influence policies. Many are given to get (or keep) direct financial 
benefits, such as contracts, permits, grants, and subsidies. Most large 
local campaign contributions come from contractors, developers, unions, 
and others seeking financial benefits from the candidates' government.

Also, consider the other side of the coin:  candidates who lose control 
of their campaigns to independent spenders can lose an election that, 
left to themselves, they might have won. Election distortion doesn't 
always go the way big spenders mean it to, but that doesn't make it 
okay. Two recent instances occurred in Coralville, IA 
<http://www.cityethics.org/content/old-and-new-local-independent-spending-elections> 
and Contra Costa, CA 
<http://www.cityethics.org/content/how-huge-corporations-political-spending-can-change-citys-ethics-environment> 
(the links are to City Ethics blog posts I wrote on these instances).

And public campaign financing programs are effective not just with 
respect to who is elected, but also with respect to increasing the 
number of individuals who can run for office and make their views known 
to their communities.

Robert Wechsler
City Ethics

On 10/28/2015 4:28 PM, Steven John Mulroy (smulroy) wrote:
>
> Since so many of you have asked me for clarification of my question 
> and/or engaged me on my premise, and done so  to the entire list, I 
> feel as though I owe the entire list some responses.
>
> In short,  I was using “effective” as shorthand for such things as: 
> corruption/appearance of corruption;  perceived/actual influence of 
> lobbyists or special interests; competitiveness of elections; and in 
> general, any decline in the extent to which “big money donors” control 
> electoral outcomes and policy decisions. Some of you have pointed me 
> to recent studies showing that at least some reforms can be 
> effective.   E.g., Linda Powell, _The Influence of Campaign 
> Contributions in State Legislatures_; J. Migin Cha, Miles Rapoport, 
> _Fresh Start: The Impact of Public Campaign Financing In 
> Connecticut_.  One gave an example of specific reform(s) which did 
> /not/ work,  Ray La Raja, 
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026137941300125X, or 
> which can have unintended consequences not always for the better, Ray 
> La Raha, 
> https://www.press.umich.edu/4882255/campaign_finance_and_political_polarization 
> .  These are useful counters, though not necessarily proof that /no/ 
> reforms can be effective.
>
> Then others question the premise of whether there is any problem to be 
> fixed, thus doubting whether anything could ever truly be called 
> “effective.”  I respect this point of view while not sharing it.  
> Speaking only for myself, I have seen so many studies over the years 
> about how large donations can effect legislative outcomes, that I am 
> inclined to think that /some/ sort of regulation, at least disclosure, 
> is warranted—a position which it seems even the “skeptics” generally 
> do not contest.  At any rate, I did not wish to open  up that can of 
> worms, and was not intending to invite debate on that point.
>
> Finally, I’ve seen personal testimonials about their own electoral 
> experience.  For what it is worth (and I’m not claiming it’s 
> necessarily worth much), I can tell you that I, too, have won multiple 
> elections in which I was outspent heavily—not 10 to 1, but over 2 to 
> 1, and multiple times. So I know that money isn’t /always/ 
> determinative of outcomes.  But I also have personal, anecdotal 
> experience watching colleagues grant access, attention, and 
> (willingness to sponsor initiatives) selectively to large donors—all 
> things which, from a but-for causation perspective, do indeed 
> influence policy outcomes.
>
> SJM
>
>
>
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