The Price of Power

Candidates for Undergraduate Council (UC) president and vice-president have been subject to Harvard’s own version of campaign finance reform this year. In the hope of making the race fairer, reforms enacted last year by the UC expand and equalize the spending ability of each ticket. Under the new guidelines, each pair of running mates receives $400 from the UC budget to finance their campaign, a significant jump from the $100 available last year. This swelling of campaign war chests has improved the quality of this year’s race by allowing candidates to focus on communicating their ideas instead of raising funds. And now that all candidates are armed with a reasonable amount of money, we expect that dishonest, unreported spending will come to a halt.

All three tickets have endorsed the increase in campaign funding, indicating that previous spending limits made it difficult for candidates to reach out successfully to an electorate of 6500 students. UC campaigns are a critical part of the process of improving the Harvard College experience, and the $100 previously allocated for each ticket was insufficient for postering, advertising, and other general costs associated with meaningful campaigns.

A result of this past underfunding was the perception that some previous candidates may have underhandedly spent their own money on their campaigns, a clear violation of election finance rules. Candidates’ bending of election rules is unacceptable, as it erodes the student body’s trust in its elected representatives and detracts from the legitimacy of our democratic system. Now that campaign coffers boast a healthy $400 each, there is no reason for candidates to break those rules.

The major fear of many of those who opposed the increase in UC funding for the presidential campaigns was that many tickets would crop up, each claiming $400, resulting in thousands of dollars of UC spending on non-serious candidates. This year’s race features three tickets, the same number involved in last year’s election, and all of them are clearly serious about their campaigns. Worries about abuse of the $400 reimbursement policy were unfounded. The UC is indeed investing $1200 of students’ money in these three tickets, but we feel that this is a small price to pay for the sake of good leadership in the year ahead.

In short, the recent expansion of funding for candidates will help make the process of selecting a new UC president and vice-president fairer by ensuring that all the candidates start on a level playing field. While we endorse this measure, we also encourage candidates to remember that truly connecting with students does not depend on money. Canvassing, showing strongly in debates, and using campaign websites to communicate ideas are effective and free of charge. We hope that those seeking election will make use of all the opportunities before them to demonstrate convincingly their ability to serve the student body.