Campaign Reform: Taking the Worry Out of Reelection
Shapiro, Walter
Campaign Reform: Taking the Worry Out of Reelection by Walter Shapiro While Sam Ervin was presiding over the Senate Watergate committee’s interrogation of John Ehrlichman, Howard Cannon was...
...a $25,000 limit on an individual’s contributions to all candidates in a calendar year...
...Because of that mood some real practical considerations were overlooked...
...Courts in New Jersey and Illinois prohibited candidate can spend up to $50,000 of his own money to obtain a Capitol Hill job that pays $42,500 a year...
...With incumbents granted this kind of head start challengers usually must spend heavily in order even to catch up...
...And they will be right...
...Primaries-and to a lesser extent minor parties-are the principal roadblock to an effective public-financing entire $40,000 subsidy as well...
...Eagleton claimed his amendment would “minimize the corruptive role of money in politics,” but the real effect will be to minimize the chances of challengers overcoming the incumbents’ initial advantage...
...In election years, challengers must depend on press releases or paid-for advertising to gain exposure, but congressmen can always produce news by introducing a bill or announcing a government contract for their district...
...Don Riegle’s complaint that there “are just too damn many lawyers in Congress...
...There’s just one flaw in this neat schema-this provision will virtually ensure the reelection of incumbent congressmen...
...Not that they need much help...
...This is not a totally unrealistic approach, since spending levels during primaries among nonincumbents are often relatively low...
...Treasury guaranteeing the right of every major $55 mlhon...
...But on the whole the bill reflects the conflict of interest inherent in allowing Congress to reform its own campaign practices...
...The veteran Democrat from Nevada had the responsibility for trying to contain a tempest...
...are the “major” and “minor” candi- No one can succeed in politics withdates...
...More than Walter Shapiro is an editor of The Washington Monthly . 50 amendments were brought to the floor, before the Senate, by a vote of 82 to 8, passed the most comprehensive campaign reform bill in our history...
...Watergate has emphasized the dangers of an excess of pragmatism...
...Kennedy-Scott, which ponents are also likely to argue that would base its subsidies on the size of public financing will only increase the the party vote in the last election, number of frivolous congressional stimulated an extensive Senate discuscandidates...
...The legislators figured that “if you call it tax reform often enough, they’ll believe it’s tax reform, ¶¶ although the new law is as glaringly deficient as the old...
...Some of this familiarity is the residue of past campaigning, but much of it is achieved at the taxpayers’ expense...
...Ideally, such a plan should satisfy two criteria: limiting the influence of special-interest money and broadening the social and economic base of those who serve in Congress...
...able campaign...
...Rather than a wholehearted endorsement of Congress, this record is really just a reflection of the built-in advantages of incumbency...
...A Chance for the Big Time Often poorly-financed candidates enter congressional primaries with the hope of winning a cheap primary race and then using party money in the fall campaign...
...Part of the problem may simply have been naivete...
...This deposit would be difficulty is that the deposit, which returned after the primary if the must be raised in small contributions, candidate received at least 10 per cent is pegged at 20 per cent of the entire of the vote...
...The Anderson-Udal1 bill sets up a system of matching grants for congressional elections, including primaries...
...Political parties would also feel the impact of public financing...
...One of the best features of both the Hart and Anderson-Udal1 plans is that they don’t try to eliminate private campaign contributions...
...plan, which would cover all congres- Although potentially effective in sional candidates, a contender in a House races, the Hart plan unforHouse primary would become eligible tunately becomes unwieldy when for a $40,000 subsidy if he first raised applied to the Senate-especially in a deposit of $8,000 in contributions large states like Illinois and Ohio...
...The inequity of the spending ceilings in the Senate bill is accentuated by the unrealistically low levels at which they have been pegged...
...Traditionally, those candidates who strongly appeal to one wing of a political party have been the most successful at attracting grassroots funding...
...Admittedly, the course of almost any reform bill through Congress is circuitous...
...Take the section of the Senate bill that sets strict limits on the total amount that congressional candidates can spend on their own campaigns...
...Con- Although this last provision is exsidering the multiplicity of candidates cessively draconian, Hart’s idea of and the variety of party labels in using money to determine who is-and primaries, it is difficult to envisage an is not-a serious candidate is not equitable system of determining who nearly as undemocratic as it sounds...
...The amendment was defeated, 50 to 38, but half a dozen reformers voted against it because they wanted to wait for the committee hearings on public financing that begin on September 18...
...in 1968, Senator Abraham Ribicoff spent $586,000 on his reelection campaign...
...These ceilings were justified as a way of preventing the wealthy from buying their way into office, but the real motivation was simply congressional self-interest...
...Cannon, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, is far too much of a traditionalist to be very critical of the world’s greatest deliberative body...
...If the winners of all congressional primaries were guaranteed Treasury checks to cover the fall campaign, primary costs would sky-rocket since there would no longer be a need to hoard funds for the fall campaign...
...sion of this problem...
...Equally revealing was the way the senators “reformed” the franking privilege...
...Admittedly, the frank encountered some bad publicity last year...
...Senate candidates in the larger states could easily wither on the vine for want of this “seed money...
...Consequently, it will be very tempting to settle for some faulty subsidy plan for congressional elections as an interim solution...
...The provision for 15 cents per voter sounds ample until you realize that a candidate must pay 4.8 cents in postage alone to mail just one piece of campaign literature bulk rate...
...Even the most corrupt of senators has too much pride to sell his vote for a $100 contribution...
...In fact, widely recognized and has led at least the principal weakness of the 1971 ‘one academic expert to conclude that tax check-off plan for the presidential “the best solution is apparently to race is that it tends to discourage offer no subsidies in primaries...
...Under the Hart through some form of public subsidy...
...Weicker’s solution was to inject pay-as-you-go financing into politics by making it a crime for a campaign to be more than $5,000 in debt...
...Things were different back in 1971 when the last effort was started to reform campaign financing...
...The Hart plan provides every Last year, Georgia Democrats were serious candidate with a spending confronted with a primary ballot floor-enough money to run a respectfeaturing 15 Senate hopefuls...
...Legislators learned long ago that openly opposing reform was bad politics...
...Some of the support for the restrictive proposals came from wellintentioned reformers who saw the Campaign Act as a first step toward public financing of election campaigns...
...The problem faced by reformers is that imperfect legislation invariably produces unanticipated consequences...
...Not all Senator8 who supported the Eagleton amendment were entirely motivated by self-interest...
...But public financing is unlikely to transform Congress sufficiently to answer Rep...
...Between campaigns congressmen are often granted free television time -billed as “reports to the people”and their newsletters are frequently published as newspaper columns...
...Such ceilings are based on the mistaken idea that the fundamental problem in politics is the high cost of campaigning rather than unequal access to the funds to pay for it...
...A good example of a flawed public financing plan for congressional elections was the one introduced by Ted Kennedy and Hugh Scott as an amendment to the Campaign Act...
...On a senatorial level, the James Buckley campaign in New York, specifically geared to conservative voters, provided a model of small-scale fund-raising...
...Op- third parties...
...The Act has some excellent features: a $3,000 limit on an individual’s contributions to a specific candidate (raised to $6,000 if there’s a primary...
...Their elaborate calculations ignore one simple problemwhat happens if public financing hasn’t been adopted by 1976, when most of the bill’s provisions take effect...
...Although a one-forone matching system may make it unduly difficult for non-wealthy candidates to get their campaigns started, the Anderson-Udal1 grant formula could easily be modified...
...The mood of the Senate in light of Watergate was to write tough restrictions no matter what they happened to be,” he explained...
...In addition, it might help broaden the base of those serving in Congress by making things easier for candidates who are not wealthy...
...The bill originally drafted in committee by Howard Cannon contained slightly higher ceilings...
...And the number of peren- plan would face in Virginia, where in nial candidates will mushroom as well...
...Although there was a national consensus in favor of recasting the tax structure, Congress took its cues from Humpty Dumpty: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean,” he told Alice...
...They were not encouraging, for the Senate’s excesses of reformist zeal were in their own way as disturbing as Ehrlichman’s efforts to justify the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist...
...Perhaps the most outlandish of these was offered by Lowell Weicker, based on his “personal experience...
...At first glance, it seems the perfect reform for those concerned about curbing the high cost of seeking public office and reducing the influence of money in politics...
...Sena- third-party candidates...
...For example, enactment of such a system would hasten the end of the one-party districts which contribute so heavily to the seniority system in the House...
...In Congressional Quarterly, Alan Ehrenhalt pointed out that seven of the 10 challengers who upset House incumbents in 1972 spent more than $100,000 on their fall campaigns...
...and strict financial disclosure requirements for all highlevel government officials...
...This self-assurance, coupled with a widespread desire to jump on the bandwagon of reform after Watergate, helped to produce the 50-plus amendments that were introduced on the Senate floor...
...But playing things by ear doesn’t alKays work when it comes to campaign reform...
...bill for congressional elections...
...For example, Senate candidates could receive $75,000 for the first $15,000 they raise, $60,000 for the next $15,000, $45,000 for the next $1 5 000 and so on...
...The new spending limits go one step further and restrict the challenger’s ability to reach the voters by any means...
...Although obviously ex- candidate to make his case to the treme, this is not an isolated example...
...In his best tone of moral outrage, Weicker declared that “the budgetary procedures in our campaigns are horrendous,” and that “we have to match the income with the outgo...
...By enacting laws which treat every campaign contributor as if he were the president of ITT, Congress may actually discourage widespread citizen participation in the financing of politics in the name of reform...
...A Senate candidate in only would he forfeit the deposit, but Vermont would only have to post a he would be obligated to repay the small deposit, but a contender in California would have to raise $280,000 before receiving a penny from the federal government...
...Campaign financing is too important and too complex an area to settle for imperfect solutions...
...Instead, proper use of the frank is left to the discre-’ tion of each congressman...
...With a large staff provided at public expense, it is not difficult for an incumbent to build up a reservoir of good will through delivering services like tracking down lost Social Security checks and handing out guidebooks of Washington...
...Many senators will freely admit that they know nothing about taxation or foreign policy, but each fancies himself an expert on campaign financing...
...Amendments like Proxmire’sand a $50 limit on cash contributions which was included in the bill-demonstrate a widespread overreaction to the role of money in politics...
...Even the most limited public- Using the ability to raise money as financing bill is going to face consider- the criterion for defining major canable opposition as “another handout didates avoids the sticky problem of to those goddam politicians...
...recent years party labels have been This fringe candidate problem is rendered all but meaningless...
...For example, members of Congress are entitled to free postage under the franking privilege...
...Their strategy was to make the bill so restrictive that even incumbents would prefer anything-including public financing-to campaigning under the new requirements...
...This purist approach was manifest in amendments like the one proposed unsuccessfully by William Proxmire to place a flat $100 limit on all campaign contributions...
...In introducing the provision, Proxmire stroked all the appropriate rhetorical chords, declaring that he had seen “a great deal of vital legislation passed or defeated because large political contributors have influenced senators to vote for it or against it...
...Such legislation would do far more than merely drive specialinterest contributions underground...
...Campaign Reform: Taking the Worry Out of Reelection by Walter Shapiro While Sam Ervin was presiding over the Senate Watergate committee’s interrogation of John Ehrlichman, Howard Cannon was presiding over the Senate’s first effort to write election campaign legislation designed to prevent future Watergates and-in Ted Kennedy’s words-“shut off the underground rivers of influence money that pollute our politics...
...If each candidate had re- -especially if the money would in all ceived public funding up to the spend- likelihood be repaid after the election: ing ceiling for Texas primaries as What equity demands is not provided in the Senate bill, this race standardized spending ceilings, but alone would have cost the...
...But from conversations with him a few days after passage of the “reform” bill, it was clear that even he was not impressed by the performance of his colleagues...
...As Herbert Alexander, the leading academic authority on campaign spending, points out, the $400 million spent on political campaigns in 1972 is roughly equivalent to the amount one corporation (Procter & Gamble) spends on its own advertising each year...
...Given the amount of ground that a challenger has to make up in the short space of a political campaign, the current costs of seeking an office aren’t that unreasonable...
...Not that it was Senator Cannon’s fault...
...Perhaps the best example of the congressional shell-game was the Tax Reform Act of 1969...
...voters...
...Costs are held down in many races by variants of the argument that “if we spend too much against fellow Democrats in the primary, there won’t be anything left over to use against the Republicans in the fall...
...In 1970, Capitol Hill watched with horror as Howard Metzenbaum and Richard Ottinger scored major upsets in Senate primaries through the use of saturation television advertising...
...Similarly, the mood in the Senate this July as it approved the Campaign Act seemed to be “if it sounds good, pass it...
...The symmetry and order which the Connecticut Senator idealizes is far more suited to a corporate boardroom than to an election campaign...
...It is a truism of ward politics that favors can be translated into votes on election day...
...Ehrlichman’s testimony dominated the late July headlines, but the place to look for clues as to what political life will be like in post-Watergate America was the five days of Senate debate that culminated on July 30 in the passage of the Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1973...
...For Senate races, the ceilings are relatively workable for large states like Michigan and New York, but they become increasingly absurd as the size of the state decreases...
...And if you set the spending ceiling low enough, it is deceptively easy to reason, candidates of average means will be able to compete on fairly even footing with the rich and well-connected...
...Instead, Congress set dollar limits on radio and television campaign advertising...
...The fear was that if unknowns like Ottinger and Metzenbaum could defeat the likes of John Glenn and Ted Sorensen, no incumbent would be safe from a rich challenger shrewd enough to hire someone *like Charles Guggenheim or David Garth to handle his television commercials...
...Senate contenders, for example, would have to raise at least $15,000 in contributions of $50 or less to receive matching funds from the government...
...In Connecticut, for example, the Act’s spending limit for the general election would be $3 15,000...
...Used to mail everything from newsletters to agricultural notices, the frank is a key weapon in the arsenal of any incumbent in quest of reelection...
...Harry Byrd, Jr., Young attorneys undoubtedly will elected as an Independent in his last enter hopeless races as a government- Senate race, tried to illustrate the subsidized way to advertise their law difficulties that the Kennedy-Scott practices...
...Even after Watergate, comprehensive public financing proposals like the Hart plan are far from congressional passage or public acceptance...
...On a presidential level, George McGovern, Barry Goldwater, and George Wallace each was supported by hundreds of thousands of small contributors...
...dbviously , any comprehensive campaign subsidy plan for federal elections would have vast repercussions...
...But by a vote of 70 to 11 the Senate accepted an amendment by Thomas Eagleton to lower these limits by a nickel...
...The Kennedy-Scott amendment was simple: it would have paid for major party congressional campaigns with public funds up to the limits set by Congress...
...For Senate campaigns, the ceilings are based on a formula of 10 cents per eligible voter in primaries and 15 cents in the general elections...
...The ceilings on broadcast spending established after the 1970 elections were designed to keep well-heeled challengers from waging saturation television advertising campaigns...
...Consequently, the adoption of public financing plans which use small contributions to trigger government subsidies is likely to have a polarizing effect on both major parties, strengthening the hands of conservative Republicans and left-liberal Democrats...
...Rather, they use the ability to raise money in small sums to define credible candidates and thereby enhance the political influence of the small contributor...
...A system of public finance which encourages the issue-oriented wings of both political parties can only help to return convictions and ideals to American political life...
...For House races, the spending limit is $90,000 apiece for the primary and the general elections...
...A Hex on Reform While most of the proposals were defeated, they showed the direction in which the Senate’s thought was moving...
...What makes the Weicker amendment significant is the degree to which it is alien to the spirit of sloppy exuberance which is the hallmarkand the saving grace-of American politics...
...In the same way, the corrupting influence of cash donations arises when suitcases are filled with $100 bills, not from single, $100 cash contributions...
...71 candidates Congress who could not raise $8,000 entered...
...For inherent in congressional campaigns...
...But all these indirect subsidies pale compared to the points earned by the ombudsman-or errand boy-function of a congressional office...
...The Bankroll Incumbents begin every campaign with their names far more widely known than their opponents...
...But the real significance of the Kennedy-Scott amendment is that it provided a barometer of senatorial feeling about public financing...
...For years, public financing of elections has been one of those reforms which could never make the transition from civics books to political reality...
...They were based on a formula of 15 cents for the primary and 20 cents thereafter...
...Following the election of out being able to attract supporters Lyndon Johnson as Vice President in and it is difficult to conceive of a 1960, a primary was held to fill his potentially credible candidate for vacant Senate seat...
...This means that after the primary a Senate candidate in Delaware could spend up to $175,000 and $2.1 million in California...
...Thus reformers were largely preoccupied with regulating the use of television and they tried to require broadcasters to provide low-cost air time for political candidates...
...Yet as the July senatorial charade which produced the Campaign Act illustrated, half-baked reforms are often worse than no reforms at all...
...Although the frank is theoreti-, cally limited to “official business,” its utility over the years has been enhanced by the Post Office’s reluctance to draw a strict line between “official business” and politics...
...But if he received less subsidy, and this depends on the size than five per cent of the vote, not of the state...
...Since 1954, less than 10 per cent of all House members, and 20 per cent of all senators who have run for reelection have been defeated...
...Under almost any system of financing imaginable, politics is likely to go on attracting those people-like lawyers-with flexible schedules and adjustable incomes...
...The major flaw in KennedyScott is that it would not have covered congressional primaries...
...The of $250 or less...
...me Interim Threat An analogous approach toward funding congressional elections developed by John Anderson and Morris Udal1 in the House might help solve this problem...
...Weicker added the requirement that all fund-raising and spending cease two weeks before an election, although television and newspaper advertising could be arranged in advance...
...In Rhode Island the ceiling for the fall campaign would be $175,000, but last year’s race cost Senator Claiborne Pel1 and challenger John Chafee about $500,000 each...
...instead, they just try to subvert it...
...The two-party tor Philip Hart even developed a structure seems far more solid today campaign financing plan where frivo- than it did in 1968, but it would be a lous candidates might wind up in serious mistak to institutionalize it bankruptcy court...
Vol. 5 • September 1973 • No. 7
