I am a democrat. A little “d” democrat. I think democracy is a good thing.
A clear-eyed, educated, and informed public went to the polls on November 3, 1998 and cast a binding vote to enact the Massachusetts Clean Elections Law by a two-to-one margin. More than one million voters understood the need to overhaul the state’s campaign finance laws, and they acted on it. It won in every single legislative district in the Commonwealth. It is now a law on the books.
That’s democracy.
The law approved by voters has a sound and voluntary framework. Candidates for state office who agree to spending and contribution limits can qualify for a limited amount of public money. To qualify, a candidate must raise a large number of small contributions (between $5 and $100) from those he or she seeks to represent. The spending limits range from $30,000 for a House race to $3 million for gubernatorial candidates. In addition, if a participating candidate gets outspent by someone outside the system, the participating candidate can receive limited matching funds to keep pace. The cost of the entire system is $10 million per year, about five-hundredths of one percent of the state budget. The state Legislature and the governor have approved this funding in each of the last two years, as the fund builds toward the first elections held under the new system in 2002.
As I understand it, Rep. Bosley thinks the voters just didn’t understand what they were voting on. Opponents of the law may gain comfort from this notion because they don’t like what the voters did, but, in fact, all the fundamentals of the law were right before the voters’ eyes when they overwhelmingly approved the proposal in 1998.
Voters clearly understood public money was involved. The amount of public financing per race was the subject of a chart on the ballot, as well as in the law summary’s first sentence. The official title given to the initiative by the attorney general and secretary of the Commonwealth was “Public Campaign Financing.” The title appeared in official printed materials, newspaper articles, and in the voter’s guide, or “Red Book,” sent to every voting household.
Contrary to Rep. Bosley’s view, the public funding system is precisely the reason the public voted for the ballot question. Citizens want a level playing field for all candidates regardless of access to wealth or fund-raising ability. Public financing is the best way to provide credible candidates the chance to run on equal footing. Voters want campaign spending limits. A voluntary system in which candidates agree to spending limits needs to provide something in return, like substantial public financing. Citizens want to reduce the influence of special-interest money in the election and lawmaking process. Replacing interested private money with disinterested public money is a suitable response to this concern.
It is true that the public doesn’t want tax dollars thrown at a problem–they want something in return when public money is spent. What they get with the Clean Elections Law are more viable candidates, campaign spending limits, and less influence of special interest money in state politics.
Rep. Bosley complains that Clean Elections will use taxpayer money to fund candidates that some taxpayers may not like. In reality, tax dollars fund programs that some like and some don’t like all the time. A particular group of voters may not believe it is right to spend their tax dollars on public schools or the Big Dig. But we do it. Once upon a time, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts didn’t pay for polling places. I think we can all agree that spending money to enhance access to democracy is an important use of public resources. This reform law also improves access, as well as fairness and openness.
This year, roughly 60 percent of all incumbents running for re-election have neither primary nor general election major-party opponents. Even where there is an opponent, incumbents on average will outspend the challenger by a two- or three-to-one margin. In any case, virtually the only voice heard on the campaign trail is that of the current officeholder. The problem is too few candidates, not too many.
Simply put, the voters have spoken and it is now time to make this law work as effectively as possible–which brings us to Rep. Bosley’s second and third arguments, that there are “technical flaws” in the law, and those will lead to “unintended consequences.”
Rep. Bosley argues that the law is “flawed,” a concern reform advocates have heard ad nauseam in the two years since passage. It is not. Certainly, there are technical corrections that could be made, as with any law. In addition, legislators have raised a handful of suggestions about policy changes that would increase participation in the voluntary system without undermining it. Yet in the environment created by legislators who are hostile to the law, these modest amendments have found little traction. Suggestions for district expenditures, increases in the spending limits, and other matters have largely fallen on deaf ears.
Even administrative changes–like the “technical” bill filed by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance this year–have become political footballs. Three days of testimony, including the 11 pages offered by Rep. Bosley, failed to focus the Election Laws Committee on the task at hand, namely, implementing the people’s will.
I don’t want to bore readers with the minutiae, but many of the concerns raised in Rep. Bosley’s 11 pages of testimony would be addressed by the technical bill or by changes that are acceptable to reformers. Opponents of reform seldom link their concerns to specific policy suggestions that would actually solve them, even those found in pending legislation.
This reflects a deep institutional resistance to change. Taking any substantive action to make Clean Elections work as intended would signal that lawmakers accept the law, something they don’t want to do.
Will too many candidates come out of the woodwork to run for office? I, for one, have faith in voters to embrace that and make informed decisions. In Maine, where a similar law is going into effect for legislative races, 115 candidates qualified for public money, approximately a third of all candidates. One-half of incumbent state senators in Maine are participating. Candidates who would otherwise not seek office are running. Some survived the primary; others did not. The same is true in Arizona, where a public financing law passed in 1998 and is now in effect. Concern about “frivolous” candidates, though, is starting to look frivolous.
Are there better ways to re-engage the public than campaign finance reform? While reform won’t do it alone, it is an important piece of the puzzle. Public education efforts to register, educate, and mobilize voters are also an important part of reinvigorating our democracy.
While it is not clear what all the steps are to rebuild our democracy, there is one step that takes us in the wrong direction: any legislative action whatsoever that undermines the people’s campaign-finance reform law.
Voters expect to get what they passed and what they deserve–the strongest campaign finance reform in the nation. The state Legislature would do well to heed that call.
David Donnelly is director of Massachusetts Voters for Clean Elections.