Campaign Funding Limits

Soft money is unregulated donations to political parties and other groups. Now, since donating to advocacy groups in general is so clearly important to freedom of expression and debate, the law doesn't quite end how money affects politics. After all, given the size and power of government today, few groups aren't interested in who runs the government. This is partly why regulation of thinly veiled political advertisements was part of the new law. One might ask if donating to politicians directly is no less important, perhaps to democracy itself since it lets the people have a voice in who rules? If so, why are limits on how much we can donate to a political party or candidate such a great idea? Put aside the fact the money and influence will find its way somehow. Yes, the system isn't all that pretty, but no one said speech and democracy was meant to be. Freedom is complicated ... limiting it for "good" reasons is no less so.

Minors also are hurt by the law. The law bars minors from giving money to political campaigns. The limitation is in place to end abuses of adults giving money in children's names, but taking away the rights of minors to express their views by giving money to their favorite political group or candidate is not a great solution. Encouraging minors to spend their money for things besides their personal enjoyment is a good thing, be it relgious, charitial, or political in nature. This is a small flaw in the law in many ways, but yet another limit on the rights of minors is something worthy of our concern.

The US Supreme Court recently upheld the right of states and the federal government to limit the amount of money political parties give or spend in support of certain candidates (“hard money” as compared to spending in support of parties and issues themselves known as “soft money”). The narrow split (5-4) shows the remaining controversy that this view has on the Court, and to a lesser extent, in the country as well. For instance, it is true that Senator McCain’s current efforts to pass a campaign finance package expresses the concerns of many in the nation that money spent in campaigns has reached extreme levels. Nonetheless, if the issues were so easy and lacking in controversy, such a law would be passed already. In actuality, not only are people somewhat satisfied with limits in spending now in place, but many recognize the problems involved in the whole enterprise. The supreme one being that limiting the amount of money to promote one’s message (or candidacy, which is largely the same thing) ultimately means limiting one’s right of free expression.

The problem is notable in this very case. Millions of people belong to political parties, a few of whom give money to the party to promote its message and candidates. Therefore, if you break it down, the per capita amount of money the parties spends to promote the concerns of its members is relatively small. Furthermore, certain candidates are more important than others, so more money is logically spent on them … just look at the current situation in which the US Senate is almost equally split, after one senator changed parties to no longer make it 50/50. Thus, it is rather arbitrary to pick and choose a certain amount as a limit of how much a political party is to spend on a candidate. After all, no candidate can be seen in a vacuum because in the end, the interests of the party as a whole must be addressed. For instance, Ralph Nader was but one of many Green candidates in the year 2000, but his importance made support his candidacy unique.

The importance of the speech and associations involved cannot be denied. Freedom of speech, for which the Constitution clearly gives very high protection (“Congress shall make no law….” “No state shall make or enforce any law….”), involves a myriad of subjects. Nonetheless, political matters and the advancement of a republican democracy were clearly central in the minds of those who wrote those protections. Therefore, we should be very careful before we limit the rights of political parties and others involved in the promotion of speech central to our system of government. Furthermore, the long history of political parties since the 1790s serving as useful and fairly successful mediating and organizational tools for diverse political interests gives them an additionally special place in our nation. We are not talking about a run of the mill special interest here, but uniquely special associations whose importance are not to be denigrated because their business is no totally pristine.

Finally, denying that money is not intimately connected with speech is a denial of reality. In what other area, do we say that someone cannot spend over a certain amount of money to promote his or her particular message or cause? Do we say that a publisher cannot pay a certain author (or number of authors in the same field) over a certain amount because it would be unfair to competitors or promote special interests? Furthermore, it surely cannot be denied that money is very important in a publisher’s promotion of certain speech; said publisher might very well not care much at all about the speech, concerned more about the profit it gets him or her. Nonetheless, no matter what the motivation, speech still is promoted in the process. Thus, newspapers and other media, have an important (and unlimited as to money spent) role in promotion speech, including political causes and candidates.

Likewise, money is very important in politics. The money is necessary to promote the candidate, the message, and the interests of the people the candidate would represent. Restrict the money, you in some fashion restrict the speech and party (association) strength of those whom are running. As noted, a person or organization donates money to promote a cause that s/he cannot as easily promote. This "speech by proxy" is no less important for its indirect nature, as noted by Justice Thomas in various cases. Thus, campaign finance limits are free speech and association limits, a dangerous path to take in a society in which both are given the highest regard.

What is the justification for such limitation of important aspects of our freedoms? The primary concern is that money will corrupt politics, especially that the need of increasing money to run a campaign will tie the winners to special interests. First off, these special interests (and the number of them out there make their special nature questionable) are really just various organizations, industries, and the like that represent concerns we all have, but do not have the time, desire, or ability to protect by ourselves. For instance, the right to life and freedom to choose movements can be seen as special interests, as are farmers, heavy industry, the elderly, and so on. A major job of government is to balance all these “special” interests, including hearing from representatives (lobbyists) of them, many of whom “petition for the redress of grievances” (as the First Amendment phrases it). Various competing “factions” (James Madison’s word in 1789) are a continuing presence in all free societies, and arbitrarily deciding that they should only promote their interests to a certain degree (e.g. via donation limits) throws a monkey wrench in the whole process. Certain groups need more pressure and resources to promote their cause, so this also tends to be inequitable as well.

”Special interests” is not the only naughty term that turns out to be a lot less offensive than it seems. Another is “soft money,” which is really just money spent to promote political parties and interest groups. This is actually better than “hard money” in that its purpose is more diverse and more people ultimately control the funds as compared to money given to a single candidate. The problem for some is that soft money is largely unregulated, thus it serves as a backdoor way to breach the spirit of campaign finance laws. Nonetheless, if taken to its logical conclusion, limits on soft money become rather severe. For instance, some have proposed limits on “issue ads,” meaning limits on political advertising. This not only limits money spent, but pure speech as well. Hard money is felt to be in some cases little more than a bribe, though support of candidates (and speech for that matter) is quite often complicated, a mix of good and bad. Soft money is a lot harder to denigrate in that associations (especially political parties), opinion, and speech are clearly involved, and the one on one quid pro quo problem a lot less troubling.

Finally, is political campaigns currently too expensive? It is quite true that running for office is not cheap, but then little is in today’s media world. For instance, the production and actor salary costs of a single episode of a successful sitcom on television can run into the millions of dollars, and a commercial in prime time thousands (select times, such as during the Super Bowl, can run into the hundreds of thousands). These costs must be paid thus the constant need to raise money. Money also is needed to get name recognition, challenge popular candidates and incumbents, and promote a campaign that is not very popular (but still is important for the candidate, e.g., third party candidates that lack the support of entrenched majority parties). Let it also be remembered that limits on how much a candidate spends of his or her own money has been held to be an unconstitutional limit on free expression, since the corruption concerns of other donating are not present. Therefore, poorer candidates need to raise money to counteract such spending and unequal playing fields, though the rich individuals surely can be corrupted by some other means.

Reforms in this process, including free air time and some type of public financing of campaigns is surely possible, but limiting expenditures? This desire to mandate limits on spending, since we cannot control ourselves in any other way, in akin to limiting bad speech because it might hurt us sometimes. This is not how things are done in a free society, both as a matter of liberty and freedom, but also because in the end it rarely succeeds. This is perhaps why limits on campaign donations except for things such as corporate and public servant involvement did not arise for nearly two hundred years. Money has always been part of politics, and always will, especially because in the real world things cost money, even “free” speech, association rights, and representative democracy itself.

How exactly will campaign reform stop the Enrons of America? Do we really think that they won't somehow get the money out there, if nothing else via lobbyists and the jobs and resources they offer and control? The good done is offset by the bad and risky, as shown by the results of campaign reform in the 1970s. And all campaign finance packages are likely to have questionable elements thrown in like limiting political ads for a certain amount of times before elections. Political ads, like many sources of information, leave a lot to be desired, but information they provide, and it's not the government's job to decide such speech is not worthy of full protection. "Congress shall make no law" means just that, especially at the undisputed heart of free speech, namely speech (and association and petitioning of the government, yes, even by lobbying and PACS) of a political nature. The founding fathers who supplied liquor on election day to voters would surely agree.