campaign finance experts

campaign finance experts

Analyzing the Impact of Campaign Finance on Political Processes

1. Introduction to Campaign Finance

Many argue that campaign finance issues impact a range of public policies, but our analysis is confined to a self-contained study of campaign finance rules and their impact on qualifying political processes. Disagreements about the appropriate ends of political processes are then not engaged. The goal of our research is the identification of specific institutional rules associated with contributions or expenditures that are most likely to have the proposed effects on stated goals. All of our policy considerations focus on whether one set of contribution or expenditure rules used are preferable to another and whether one set of spending or reporting requirements should be used rather than another.

In politics, citizens, associations, and enterprises pool their preferences for policy consequences and, in generalizing, citizens or groups of citizens collect to accomplishing electoral victory and, in essence, purchase the desired policy outcomes. The price that is paid to gain elected office is a function of the structure of campaign finance rules set directly by the state. That is, different states have different campaign finance arrangements and there is variation over time within a state. What electoral rules are most likely to lead to policies reflecting the voters’ preferences? The policy area we examine is related to contributions, independent and political action broadcast expenditures, and related spending in state contests where more than one candidate is seeking election.

2. Theoretical Frameworks in Campaign Finance Research

Scholars who study contributions and elections often use two research models. These models, in turn, are derived from the theoretical approaches to the study of American politics: pluralism and elitism. The pluralist model and the elitist model are useful for separate purposes. Specifically, the pluralist model of campaign finance examines individual and group-level determinants of campaign giving and spending. The pluralist model of campaign finance has been generally concerned with uncovering the systemic as well as institutional dimensions of the role of campaign giving and spending in American politics. The elite model focuses on the implications of the increasing importance of small group campaign giving and spending, particularly PACs, and the identity and behavior of the small group donors, groups, and parties involved in the process. It is concerned with the implications of campaign giving for political representation and public policy.

The primary forces the pluralist model emphasizes include political opportunity, citizen grievance, the capacity of individuals and interest groups, and political interaction. The elite model of campaign finance, on the other hand, reflects the tendency of many scholars to view American politics as dominated by an influential few. According to this perspective, only a relatively small number of citizens are meaningfully involved in the political process, but their actions have major consequences for the entire political system. Their influence is achieved by manipulating the political campaigns of those seeking to hold public office. In using money to secure influence, donors are viewed as directly representing their own economic and social interests. Typically, the candidness of this effort is what concerns many elite theorists: because donors can hope to “benefit” from the policy-maker’s decisions, their giving will have a direct and disproportionately large influence on the political process.

3. Empirical Studies on the Effects of Campaign Finance

With the decline of social capital, political participation, and party identification, there are several questions that need analysis on the subject of ‘who gives and why’ in income distribution programs such as campaign finance. This area provides fodder for much empirical study and more cross-national work is starting to be done. High-visibility events, such as the 1996 United States federal election, have generated data for more comprehensive studies. The results of studies to date indicate that donors are not necessarily like the average non-donor; that is, systematic differences between donors and non-donors do exist. This literature review will examine the results of these empirical analyses – starting with smaller groups of donors, such as energy interest, and ending with broader questions of political money and its effects on election outcomes.

As economist Ray La Raja suggests, it is important for the academic community to support efforts to more clearly understand the microfoundations of our current campaign finance system, and the extent to which donors condition their giving on specific issues. For example, based on their analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) data from the 2004 and 2006 federal elections, La Raja and Schaffner concluded that while campaign giving is extremely skewed, only a slight relationship was found between contribution size and donor income. Other scholars have argued that party support, not the ordinary citizen, was the main factor driving campaign finance in more recent federal elections.

4. Regulatory Approaches and Reforms in Campaign Finance

1. Introduction Concluding from the evidence documented in the first three chapters, campaign finance affects various political processes in different ways. They thus raise questions underlying the design and effects of campaign finance regulations. While such regulations are the standard approach taken by governments to handle both the potentially distorting aspects of campaign finance, the US system is severely criticized for its focus on disclosure and entry. Having in mind that the role of money might not be easily reducible by law or constitutional amendment, it is worth discussing complementary approaches or other institutional or non-regulatory reforms. This is important, as pointed out in the blueprint for the European regulations on political parties at the European level.

2. Supporting Systemic Non-Regulatory Reforms and Policy Guidance Several reform proposals go beyond the narrow field of campaign finance. They rather deal with the political system as such or try to make the existing system more robust in dealing with the potentially distorting aspects of campaign finance. Clearly, some of these suggestions might be implemented through regulations, but most of the issues to be discussed in this chapter deal with institutional aspects or involve softer regulation, non-regulatory measures, or policy guidelines.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

More generally, we reach two main conclusions about campaign donations and the endogenous location of political candidates in the Downsian model. One, some political positions will be systematically neglected due to the structure of private interests, and campaign donations amplify this effect. The small donors are less in conflict with other small donors than with the smallest relative to median voter settings of policy choices. Even small donors will systematically bypass places without representation if these occur. Second, no practical campaign finance reform can repair these distortions. Although the empirical analysis could certainly be thought of as in the spirit of many recent proposals to regulate campaign donations, such suggestions generally are concerned with limiting the amount donated to individual candidates or the location of the candidates. Our findings are consistent with the extent of winners choosing their positions to please a common interest minority of donors is limited. In our view, the potential for filtering through donations will continue to exist independently of how large campaign donations can be.

Still, the prediction that filter allows free riding by the median voter but not by the median donor is less robust than the generative finding that filter will tend to imply a lower than optimal level of provision of public goods by the median voter. Extensions where politicians with both policy choice and the number of does may be counted as policy variables affecting comprehensive demand are discussed. Also, they may help in addressing these issues. Another future step is to continue work on structural components, including the estimation of fully identified models with more general distributions of firms, unions, and individuals, and endogenous contributions based on asymptotically robust identifying assumptions.