“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…”
The First Amendment protects a right to free speech. But how does that apply to campaign finance policy?
In Buckley v. Valeo the Supreme Court acknowledged a connection between resources and the ability to speak (Corrado 92-93). A political campaign requires funding in order to achieve viability, without resources a campaign is unlikely to effectively speak. This is why the Buckley decision viewed limits on campaign expenditures as excessive and unconstitutional.
In Money in Congressional Elections, Jacobson finds support for this claim. His research finds that money does matter in Congressional campaigns. Further, he finds that the amount of money raised by a non-incumbent challenger is a significant indicator of the electoral result of the election. Jacobson’s analysis shows that the most relevant question is not “which candidate raised more money?” but rather “does the challenger raise a sufficient amount?” (Jacobson xvi 1980). If a challenger is able to amass the resources to run a viable campaign, incumbents generally raise a similar amount (Jacobson xvii 1980). Small differences in funding do not noticeably advantage one candidate over another (Jacobson 49 1980).
From a policy perspective, this means that limits on campaign spending could effectively serve to support incumbents by limiting challengers’ ability to spend enough to run a viable campaign. Given that the campaign finance laws are written by sitting members of Congress, it is important to consider unmentioned potential ramifications. It is unlikely that advocates of reigning in campaign spending would be satisfied with an alternative which strengthens incumbents against challengers.
However, Buckley also recognizes that corruption, or even the appearance of corruption, threatens democracy (Corrado 92). The decision allows for limits on direct contributions to political candidates in order to prevent such corruption. The Court ruled that it is not the amount of a contribution which is protected free speech but rather the choice to give a contribution and express support of a candidate (Corrado 93).
The fear is that contributions to political candidates will persuade elected political leaders to pursue the interests of their contributors. But does this happen? Another possibility is that contributors only support candidates that are already supportive of their interests.
Bronars and Lott (345 1997) address head on the question of whether campaign contributions buy influence or whether donors find candidates they agree with. They “strongly reject the notion that campaign contributions buy politicians’ votes” (Bronars and Lott 346 1997). They expand upon the campaign finance literature by incorporating theories of legislative behavior.
Their study examines the voting patterns and contribution receipts of members of Congress who have announced their retirement. Through interviews with PAC managers they conclude that contributions to retiring lawmakers are extremely rare. Beginning with the assumption that a retiring member of Congress does not consider a vote’s impact on fundraising, the project looked for changes in voting behavior among retiring members (Bronars and Lott 323 1997).
Bronars and Lott did not find evidence that retiring members changed their voting patterns even when contribution patterns changed (Bronars and Lott 346 1997). While interest groups often stopped contributing, members continued to vote the same way they always did (Bronars and Lott 347 1997). They believe this is evidence that members of Congress do not base roll call vote decisions on contributions.
The Buckley decision complicates the debate by providing support to each school of thought. The Court both recognized that direct contributions may be corrupting but also that political spending is speech and cannot be limited unreasonably.
John Samples in The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform presents the debate over campaign finance policy as a conflict of two ideals: a Madisonian versus a Progressive vision of politics (Samples 17, 42). The Madisonian vision views freedom of speech as a natural right and is intensely skeptical of any limit on that right. The Progressive vision sees a government interest in regulating speech in order to achieve more just outcomes. Many of the opinions in the current campaign finance policy debate fit into one of these frameworks.
Samples cites several studies related to political contributions and the threat of corruption. Ansolaberhere, Figueiredo, and Snyder co-authored “Why is there so little money in U.S. politics?”, an article title that may surprise readers familiar with recent media coverage of Citizens United and Super PACs (Samples 91). While it is true that campaign spending is at an all time high, the authors contend that if campaign contributions are investments in beneficial policy potential contributors would stand to gain by contributing even more. The fact that they have not is evidence that contributors view contributions as “consumption” not “investment”.
They examined the rates of return that industries received through favorable government policies per dollar given in political contributions. As an example, they find that the defense procurement industry received $10,152 in additional government funding per $1 given in contributions. Rates for other industries vary from $79 to over $26,000 (Samples 93); all seem incredibly higher than typical investments from traditional markets. If this is true, and contributions serve as “investments” in beneficial policy, why do only 4% of PAC contributions reach the $10,000 limit (Samples 92)? This study examined direct contributions to candidates, leaving room in the debate for the rapid increase in expenditure funding allowed by Super PACs. However, these studies demonstrate it is unsafe to assume contributions automatically lead to corruption.
John Wright studied the impact the tobacco industry had on tobacco related policy. He considered PAC contributions, ideology, employment in a lawmaker’s district, among other factors. Wright finds that contributions “have the smallest statistical impact on voting of any of the factors considered” (Samples 95, Wright 19). Factors such as political ideology and district constituency matter far more.
The academic literature on political campaign contributions paints a much different picture than media accounts or even lawmakers themselves. After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, Time questioned whether it was “good for democracy” (“Supreme Court…”). During debate over BCRA, members of Congress decried soft money and sham issue ads, praising efforts to “control” or “reign in” the campaign finance system (Samples 3-6). Public opinion on the issue seems to overwhelmingly support reform and oppose recent developments which eased restrictions[1].
This project intends to bridge the gap between the academic and popular understanding of campaign finance policy.
[1] Economist/YouGov Feb. 1, 2011 poll; ABC News/Washington Post Feb. 17, 2010 poll; ABC News/Washington Post Feb. 4-8, 2010 poll; Pew Research Center Feb. 12, 2010 poll. Results in Appendix.
