CUE MATTHEW LESKO (THE GUY WITH THE QUESTION MARK SUIT COAT): Hey everybody! Don’t we all agree that there is TOO much money in politics!
CROWD: YEAH!
LESKO: Of course we do. We all know that politicians are bought and paid for by the people giving them money. And what about us poor saps who don’t have the money to give? We’re left out in the cold!
CROWD: Booooooo!
LESKO: So, how do we get all the money out of politics? We don’t! You’ve got to live in the real world, people! Money will always find its way into politics. Wealthy people want to use their dollars to gain access and influence over the men and women in positions of political power. It’s always been that way. It’s always going to be that way.
WOMAN IN CROWD: So, what the heck can we do about it?
LESKO: Funny you should ask. Because I’ve got a solution. Let’s start with the idea that political money is like energy—it’s never created nor destroyed just transferred. Don’t believe me? Two years after McCain-Feingold—the law that was going to finally take money out of politics—a relatively small group of Democratic strategists and donors formed a three-headed shadow Democratic Party that raised and spent $160 million in an all-out effort to defeat President Bush. NEWSFLASH: It failed. Then came super PACs—love that name, folks!—that cropped up after the Supreme Court made its Citizens United ruling …
[Crowd members begin to whisper among themselves, clearly losing interest]
LESKO: OK, OK. So you don’t want to know about court cases. Fine! Here’s the point. People can give to super PACs—as much as they want for as long as they want. Super PACs can spend that money telling you and your friends to vote for or against a candidate. The people with the deep pockets have the loudest voices. But THERE IS ANOTHER WAY …
[Crowd leans in, anticipating the big idea]
OK. So campaign finance reform is not the sort of sexy topic that a man of Lesko’s massive infomercial gifts should be wasted on. But the idea presented above is simple enough that it just might work. Here’s why.
The technology already exists. Campaigns already have to electronically file donations received in the final week before a primary within forty-eight hours. Outside groups have to file any money they are spending on campaigns within twenty-four hours of doing it. All of this electronic disclosure goes through the Federal Election Commission. The FEC already has a system in place to handle just this sort of rapid disclosure. And because the bar for immediate disclosure would be $10,000, the FEC wouldn’t be overwhelmed with the logistical nightmare of trying to rapidly post thousands of $50 contributions.
What would immediate disclosure accomplish? It would allow a light to shine—brightly and quickly—on who was funding the various groups trying to influence the political process. More specifically, it would allow reporters—like me—to dig into the funders and write stories about who they are, what their ties are to the candidate, and even why they might be giving. Immediate disclosure would force donors to think twice about whether they wanted their name in lights—or at least in media reports—as soon as they cut a check. (At the moment, a donor can write a check in the beginning of the year and, depending on the reporting requirements, not have that donation publicly available for six months or longer.) That could well cut down on the amount of money moving through the political system, as there will be some donors who, for a variety of reasons, would prefer not to draw that kind of attention to themselves.
The more light shone on the activities of these outside groups, the more likely it is that the American public—or at least those who read blogs and newspapers or watch cable news—will be better informed about the various groups trying to persuade them for or against a candidate and, theoretically, better able to make a good decision about the information they are being fed through television and radio ads.
Not only would immediate disclosure satisfy the campaign finance reform types who are forever pushing for more transparency in the process, but it would also be a hard thing for those opposed to reforming the political fund-raising system to block. The main push back against any sort of campaign finance reform is that it amounts to a restriction on free speech. Well, this proposal would allow anyone to give as much money as he/she liked. The only reason to not support it would be because of the immediate disclosure requirements, which, of course, have nothing to do with free speech.
One other potential benefit from putting an immediate disclosure provision into law? It could well lessen the influence of so-called nonprofit groups—known as 501c3s and 501c4s—which have burgeoned over the past decade in the political process. These groups do not have any—I repeat, any—disclosure requirements, meaning that they can raise and spend millions of dollars without ever making public who’s giving to them or how much they are giving. The downside of these groups is that they can’t directly advocate for or against a candidate and instead have to run issue-based campaigns. Wouldn’t some donors, who don’t mind being a bit more public with their giving, jump at the chance to see their money used to directly influence elections?
We could start slowly. Maybe test the $10,000 immediate disclosure requirement for the 2016 presidential primary season. (Sort of like how the Big East tried out the idea of a six-fouls limit back in the mid 2000s.) If it works and accomplishes its goal of heightened transparency, it could be expanded to the presidential general election in 2016 and then to all federal races in 2018.
Maybe immediate disclosure isn’t the final—or only, or best—answer when it comes to reforming the way in which campaigns are funded. But unlike many of the reforms being pushed nowadays, it would deal with the way politics is, not the way some people would like it to be. Money and politics will forever be linked. The key is to expose to the public those ties that bind and let them make the decision about whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. That is, after all, how democracy is supposed to work, right?