In June 2015, a New York Times and CBS News poll showed that 84 percent of respondents thought money had “too much” influence in politics. Yet the issue of campaign finance reform continually fails to gain much media attention. The issue causes problems in periods larger than a single election cycle, and it can be quite difficult to show evidence for.
Seductively appealing arguments against reform can be quite misleading. Some might downplay the importance of money by pointing out the failures of well-funded candidates. Consider Republican candidates Ben Carson and Jeb Bush, the leading Republican fundraisers in terms of conventional and outside contributions, respectively, according to an interactive graphic updated earlier this month by The Wall Street Journal. Both have struggled mightily to gain traction.
Other opponents of reform point out that a quid pro quo exchange cannot be detected and is already outlawed. When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton of being too influenced by Wall Street contributions, she retorted, “President Obama signed [the Dodd-Frank financial reform], pushed it through, even though he took donations from Wall Street.”
This amounts to a superficially convincing case against the notion that money plays a decisive role in election outcomes and campaign platforms. However, this overlooks the myriad ways money can protect a status quo to the benefit of the donors.
Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor turned political activist, clearly identifies this problem in his 2011 book, “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It.” In it, he differentiates between exchange economies and gift economies.
An exchange economy is transactional, like quid pro quo corruption. Once we rooted widespread venal corruption out of politics, gift economies became the undetectable method of special interests.
Lessig describes a gift economy as “a series of exchanges between two or more souls who never pretend to equate one exchange to another.” In this system, the continued relationship creates the pressure to reciprocate.
Consider someone who buys you an expensive birthday gift. On their birthday, you wouldn’t buy a cheap gift card if you wanted to maintain the relationship. You would reciprocate.
Likewise, a politician doesn’t take money for explicit votes or policy positions. They tailor their actions toward special interest ahead of time because they know they will be offered reciprocation come next election cycle when they need to beg for money.
As a result, officeholders spend a large proportion of their time raising funds. If representatives constantly respond to donors instead of constituents, it doesn’t take quid pro quo corruption to influence their policy positions. Their policy positions revolve around making their fundraising work easier.
The influence of money manifests itself most evidently in issues that defy electoral timetables — that is, in status quos special interests wish to protect. On the left, moneyed interests in oil stymie the shift away from fossil fuels.
One of the major legislative failures of the Obama era was a cap-and-trade bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Yet in the 1990s, when the ozone layer was being depleted by human use of chlorofluorocarbons, President George H.W. Bush instituted a successful a cap-and-trade program to mitigate the damage, NPR reported. The difference, of course, is the lack of a moneyed interest in CFCs.
On the right, despite conservative rhetoric about a simplified tax code, money acts to maintain a complex tax code riddled with loopholes. When politicians create loopholes, they give companies an incentive to spend money in order to maintain the loopholes before they expire. Loopholes are essentially fundraising leverage for politicians. Despite this, the issue goes unmentioned by Republicans.
Conservative or libertarian-minded supporters likely refuse to regulate campaign expenditures because they see it as excessive government intervention, and, in the vein of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, they see it as a limitation on free speech.
But this assumes that reform efforts must be centered on a limitation of expenditures rather than on a systemic reallocation of power. Regulating the gift economy by shifting the balance of power is not, in fact, incompatible with conservative policy solutions.
On many issues, from education to health care, conservatives advocate voucher systems. Similarly, by rebating a small portion of tax dollars to voters in the form of a voucher, we can make politicians as dependent upon individuals as they are today on special interests. The vouchers would expire if unused.
Suppose the vouchers were worth $50 and there were 100 voters. This means the total amount of money that could be raised would be $5,000. But politicians can only raise all of the money if they engage all 100 voters. If not, they risk leaving money on the table. This creates an incentive for politicians to engage as many individuals as possible to avoid letting the remaining vouchers expire.
Such proposals can rebalance power in the gift economy and keep our political system from further grinding to a halt.
