Craig, Adam, et al.,
Craig, I'm flattered that you'd describe the literature on this as
"rich" since I am the author of most of it (at least by the metric of
word count!). The findings from my book, Self-Financed Candidates in
Congressional Elections (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2006), held up in
2010. I also wrote a couple of book chapters on the Millionaires'
Amendment specifically, in which I noted that the MA had a marginal
effect when it was in force. In 2010, as in years past, self-financers
were generally such weak candidates that their opponents did not need
the Millionaires' Amendment to defeat them. Given the magnitude of
Johnson's victory and the formula for calculating the "opposition
personal funds amount" (which took the self-financer's opponent's prior
fundraising into account), I think it's unlikely that the MA would have
pushed Russ Feingold to victory.
Here's a link to my book:
http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailPraise.do?id=90192
When the post-general reports are filed I'll crunch the numbers and
offer some more detailed comments about the self-financing class of
2010.
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Jennifer A. Steen
Assistant Professor of Political Science
School of Political and Global Studies
Arizona State University
-----Original Message-----
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:56:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Craig Holman <holman@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [EL] The Millionaire's Amendment
To: election-law@mailman.lls.edu
Message-ID: <8CD5619816E1965-FD8-3E92@webmail-d069.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi Adam:
Yes, the political science research is rich with studies documenting
that self-funded candidates generally fare poorly at the polls. But this
lesson has not been learned by candidates or lawmakers. Many wealthy
individuals really believe they can simply buy an office -- and their
opponents tend to believe likewise, resulting in an arm's race in
fundraising and spending.
The Millionaire's Amendment was a very unnecessary provision of BCRA
from a policy perspective, but proponents of BCRA could not convince
many lawmakers of that, most of whom feared the rising phenomenon of
wealthy self-funded candidates.
Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Government Affairs Lobbyist
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Avenue NE
Washington, D.C. 20003
TEL: (202) 454-5182
CEL: (202) 905-7413
FAX: (202) 547-7392
Holman@aol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bonin, Adam C. <ABonin@cozen.com>
To: Election Law <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Sent: Fri, Nov 19, 2010 10:16 am
Subject: [EL] The Millionaire's Amendment
It just occurred to me that we've now completed our first fullfederal
election cycle after Davis v FEC and, as such, with no
Millionaire'sAmendment in place designed to provide ameliorative
measures for candidatesrunning against self-funders. Yet unless I'm
missing something (RonJohnson in Wisconsin, *maybe*), I don't know that
the lack of expanded limitshurt any candidate running against a
self-funder save, perhaps, thestill-being-counted TIm Bishop (D) v.
challenger Randy Altschuler (R) race inNY-01; self-funders seemed to do
just as poorly as they always do.
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topself.php
Has anyone given this any thought?
Adam C. Bonin | Cozen O'Connor
1900Market Street | Philadelphia, PA, 19103 | P: 215.665.2051 | F:
215.701.2321
abonin@cozen.com | www.cozen.com
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