 This section presents ideas for making government more responsive and accountable to ordinary citizens.
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Tuesday, 03 April 2007 |
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Brian Joseph has a good article in the Orange County Registrar examining how useful it is to require disclosure of campaign contributions. Doug Heller, of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, is skeptical: It's a forest and trees kind of issue. When you're investigating campaign interests, you want to see trees. But with disclosure, you're creating a black forest. One of the reasons I know disclosure is problematic is because it's what all the politicians want.
Bob Stern, of the Center for Governmental Studies, is more supportive of California's disclosure law, which is among the toughest in the country: It's a good law. There's some tweaking that could be done, but not that much more.
There may be an inherent flaw in the logic of disclosure. The presumption, which is questionable in its own right, is that some (but not all) large contributions to politicians are problematic while othes are OK. The ones that are a problem, the logic goes, are the ones where a politician then does something in return (like vote a donors way on a bill.) The solution, is to disclose the donations and the actions and then let news reporters and watchdog groups try to connect the dots between donations and favors. One problems that can occur, however, is when reporters and watchdogs are too overwhelmed to sort through all the data (the problem Joseph deals with in his article) But, the other problem is that in cases where the connection is most likely to be discovered and have someone blow the whistle, the donors and politicians figure out a way to dodge the disclosure. Brian Joseph did another good piece last fall where he found that donors were dodging California's disclosure laws by offering pledges at fundraisers and then giving the cash later. Another example would be the donations that Julie Lee illegally laundered into Kevin Shelly's campaign for Secretary of State in 2002. Rather than giving Shelley one huge contribution from herself, she gave several contributions through other straw donors to mask the source of the money (herself.) If we really think that some large contributions are problematic because they can unduly influence an legislator, why not ban large contributions? Skeptics argue that laws to limit the size of contributions only cloud disclosure by causing donors to find other avenues to channel money, but if they can evade disclosure anyhow in the few instances where it is likely to be effective is this really that large a drawback? |
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
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Representatives Chris Shays and Marty Meehan are introducing legislation to repair the federal system of voluntary spending limits on presidential campaigns. Their proposal would match contributions of up to $200 with four time the amount in public funds. So, if you give a candidate who participates in the system $100, they get another $400 in public money. This would allow candidates who agree to spending limits and raise money from ordinary citizens to compete with candidates who raise large contributions of up to $2000 from fat cats. See this story for more details. |
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Sunday, 21 January 2007 |
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New Gingrich has noted the problem that personally wealthy candidates have an advantage over those candidates who have to ask for contributions to fund their campaigns because there are no limits on what a candidate can contribute to his or her own campaigns: Consider what it takes to get elected to Congress. Today, political parties aren't recruiting candidates with bold ideas. They're recruiting candidates with big bank accounts. His solution is to get rid of contribution limts: Here's a better idea: Ban fundraising in Washington. Lift the contribution limits on citizens donating to their own congressman or senator. And then require candidates to post all their contributions online within 24 hours, where everyone can see them.
Note, House candidates are already required to post contributions online. The Senate may consider similar provisions soon. An alternative idea would be to apply limits to what millionaire candidates can apply to their own campaigns. The US Supreme Court struck down such a limit in 1976, but Justice Breyer has suggested that this should be reconsidered. Or, we could provide candidates who face self-funded millionaire opponents with public funds to match the spending of their opponents over a predetermined limit. |
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Monday, 15 January 2007 |
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Pantagraph Editorial Putting limits on donations made by individuals, parties, corporations and political action committees to political campaigns may not end corruption in Illinois. But it would be a good start.
(read the rest ) |
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Wednesday, 06 December 2006 |
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Governor Schwarzenegger and a host of good government reformers have announced a new proposal for reforming California's system for drawing legislative districts. The complete plan is available here and the press release is here . This is a subject that most voters don't follow closely, but political boundaries do matter. Some district plans can significantly distort the political representation of a state. (see this post on Ohio's results.) Other plans can insulate current incumbents from competition, making them feel less accountable to voters overall. California's plan does this -- only one incumbent (Richard Pombo) lost in the last California election for both Congress and the state legislature. Arnold says:
“We must bring competition back into the political process to guarantee that our elected leaders represent the full diversity of California and the will of the people. This is exactly the kind of political reform I promised the people of California when I became Governor three years ago. I said that we will bring the trust back to government and make our democracy strong. Last year, we came very close to getting redistricting reform done so this year I know we can do it.” Arnold should be commended for his willingness to take on this thorny issue. His current plan would be an improvement over how things now work. County clerks and other local officials would create a pool of 55 citizens. This pool eventually gets narrowed to 11 members: 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 3 others. Anyone can apply, but there are restrictions on who can actually be appointed (no lobbyists, former politcians, etc.) The commission cannot take into account the address of any current legislators. That's all good and no doubt the resutling districts would at least not be taylor made to help (or punish) current incumbents. But, this plan won't fix everything. Indeed, the bill does not even require the commission to use competition as a criteria for drawing districts. It is quite possible that California could still see elections where no incumbents lose, even after adopting this plan. That's because the bill favors keeping "communities of interest" and cities and counties together. That's a laudable goal, but in a system of single-member districts it often means that districts are heavily tilted toward one party or another. That's because birds of a feather tend to flock together -- Democrats seem to live near each other (often in big urban centers) and likewise so do Republicans. In grouping people where they live into political districts, we will likely see results that accurately reflect a state's political and ethnic makeup (unlike Ohio), but we may well wind up with incumbents who are quite entrenched. The real solution would be to move away from single-member districts. Schwarzengger's plan does not do that, and in fact it requires the commission to stick with single-member districts. But, by at least raising the problem for public discussion, this bill is arguably a step in the right direction. |
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