[EL] Campaign financing in a post-television era

[Bill Maurer]

Professor Schultz,

That was an excellent analysis and a challenging and novel conclusion. It raised a number of interesting questions for me.

First, you and a number of other scholars from across the spectrum have pointed out that technology is making money less critical for effective campaigning. (And it’s not just television—GOTV efforts are considerably cheaper as well). I expect this trend will continue. As money becomes less crucial, I would imagine that its ability to corrupt or influence would diminish as well. Although the current crop of political actors are still influenced by the television era, it is certainly possible that new political actors will concentrate more on their ability to maximize the effectiveness of low-cost means of communication like social media and spend less time raising money. In other words, a problem caused by technology (getting enough money to campaign on television) would be solved by technology (it costs almost nothing to communicate with targeted groups of voters). At that point, why regulate money in politics at all?

Second, I may be jumping the gun. The need for money will decrease, but it will not disappear, at least in the short term. If the issues that gave rise to the desire to regulate money in politics remain, but are considerably diminished, how do you think campaign finance regulations should change? Your op-ed argues that the fact that money is less crucial to campaigns means that money is no longer as strongly tied to the ability to effectively speak and First Amendment protections for spending money in campaigns should therefore diminish. In other words, the ability to regulate the factor is increased, but the need to do so is decreased. How should a less important factor in campaigns be regulated if it is no longer (or at least significantly less) constitutionally protected?

Thanks in advance,

Bill Maurer

From: Law-election [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Schultz, David A.
Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2018 6:48 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Campaign financing in a post-television era

My latest oped.
http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/371018-in-our-post-television-age-a-new-opening-for-campaign-finance-reform
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