Sensible Campaign Reform

For the past few days The Boston Globe, along with several other leading papers, have put the Dole campaign's "Aqua-Leisure" scandal on the front page. According to diligent reporters, the chair of "Aqua-Leisure Inc." circumvented federal campaign finance restrictions on corporate donations by distributing $40,000 in cash to employees, and then having each of them donate $1,000 apiece to Dole. As the Federal Election Commission (FEC) starts to investigate, whispers of "Dole-gate" stir the press corps.

Perhaps Americans' insatiable craving for scandal makes this a big story. But even as a citizen deeply concerned about the role of money in politics, I can't help but yawn when hearing these charges. This is not only because the wholesale influence-peddling that goes on uncommented in Congress and state legislatures is a much bigger story. More importantly, what difference do the maximum contribution limits really mean for campaigns? How is the electoral process made more fair if lots of upper middle class people control campaign funding instead of a few magnates?

Of course, the FEC argues that we need these limits in order to "democratize" the campaign fundraising process. Instead of only having "fatcats" fundraising for our candidates, all those "average citizens" who have a few hundred dollars to spare can determine which candidates will run and get a chance to be heard. But this is a concept of democratization that would only make sense to someone with the salary of a law professor or a federal bureaucrat. I don't know a single person in my family or neighborhood who would even think of giving something near a week's paycheck to a political candidate. And it turns out we aren't all that rare; according to Roll Call, fewer than four tenths of one percent of American citizens have given direct campaign contributions of $200 or more.

But what if we were able to ensure that everyone had an equal shot at financing political campaigns? Several constitutional theorists have suggested that such a scheme would be the apex of campaign finance reform. For instance, in his "Equal Dollars Per Voter," Edward Foley argues that all private funding should be eliminated from campaigns, allowing each voter to allocate an equal proportion of a pool of public financing to favored candidates.

Given the chicanery of many campaign contributors, a scheme like Foley's is tempting. However, the costs imposed by this regime are high as well. Could the government fairly ensure that no private money is spent? And what if some philanthropist made a good faith effort to inform individuals about the candidates--should her efforts be circumscribed?

It's relatively clear that the answer to both questions is no. But the reasons why are a bit complex, and help us to understand some deeper issues surrounding reform. I was first alerted to these issues during a personal conversation I had on the subject of reform, so it might be worthwhile to relate it.

Given that 1996 is an election year, I have often discussed the current system of campaign financing with others. The usual exchange involved some mutual laments about the demoralizing nature of present campaigns, a few comments on the feasibility of given reforms and a brief evaluation of current political leaders. Whenever I spoke with a fellow "liberal," we always talked about how best to ensure the "equal influence" of all people, rich and poor, in governmental policy. But one of the conversations broke this mold, and helped me see the problems with an "equal influence" paradigm of reform.

One day, when I was walking with a woman to the Cambridge Court House, she happened to ask me about my studies, and what might improve the current system of financing campaigns. I decided to cut right to the chase, saying, "The only solution is complete public financing; without it, corporations will always have more power than us." She assented, and we talked for a short while about the various scandals we had heard of. But then she added, "I just wish I knew what the candidates stood for. Like just a page each day in the paper would be enough. Or some time on the news."

Her comment nearly stopped me in my tracks. She had made an essential point; political campaigns should not be understood solely as distributions of power but also as forums for reasoned deliberation. Yet here I had tried to think out the problem from start to finish, to present a clear and simple explanation intelligible to the "lay person." Precisely because I sought to present simple and compelling advocacy for reform, I overlooked a fundamental justification based on the nature of campaigns themselves.

I believe that campaign finance reformers could develop far more compelling programs for reform if they took the "participation/deliberation" distinction seriously. The "equal influence" paradigm of reform automatically posits a divergence of interests between different parts of the electorate. By calling reform an opportunity for "fair deliberation," the emphasis is less on controversial schemes of distribution than on opportunities for consensus-building. With this model of reform in mind, reformers could attack distortions like thirty-second attack ads and "push-polling" through which the right does much of its "dirty work." And they would not merely be looking at campaign finance reform as an instrument to achieve one particular political program, but as an end in itself for assuring the legitimacy of all governmental decisions.

Perhaps John Dewey, the greatest American "philosopher of democracy," described a deliberative style of politics best when he insisted that "Majority rule, just as majority rule, is as foolish as its critics charge it with being...The means by which a majority comes to be a majority is the more important thing: antecedent debates, modification of views to meet the opinions of minorities, [and] perfecting processes of inquiry." Writing in the late 1920s, when many authors questioned the viability of democratic processes, Dewey discerned the preconditions for reform: "The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion, and persuasion."

Too often hidden in the shadows of more traditional rights claims, the issues raised by campaign finance reform ultimately revolve around the fundamental purpose of political participation. If they wish to demonstrate that governmental regulations can contribute to this purpose, reformers ought to make participation as deliberation, as a reflective exercise in collective autonomy, their watchword.

Political campaigns should be forums for reasoend deliberation.