HVK Archives: How to cut the cost of politics
How to cut the cost of politics - The Economist, London
Editorial
()
8 Feb 1997
Title: How to cut the cost of politics
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Economist, London
Date: Feb 8, 1997
"LET us commit ourselves tonight, before the eyes of America, to finally
enacting campaign-finance reform." Thus Bill Clinton, in what he clearly
saw as the bravest bit of his state-of-the-union message after balancing
the budget. Virtuous stuff, indeed; but hardly credible. For a start, Mr
Clinton was elected on a tidal wave of money. Second, most politicians
in America--the men who must alter the rules, if they are ever to be
altered--were elected likewise. Third, promises to introduce
campaign-finance reform are as common in American politics as bugs in
May, and every bit as likely to die in a day.
But no, this time is different, Americans cry; this time we really
are fed up. More money than ever was spent on the last election
campaign, and it was raised in more dubious ways. Heads of corporations
sipped coffee in the White House, the Lincoln Bedroom was rented out to
contributors, and Asian conglomerates poured money down a fire hose into
the coffers of the Democratic National Committee. Meanwhile, congressmen
and senators across the country have been spending the past two years in
an endless round of glad-handing, canapis and guest appearances in order
to raise money. They are captive to a single mesmerising equation: he
who has more money almost always wins the race.
Americans are right to resent this. Although in any democracy some
parties and candidates will always have more money than others, money
and the exercise of influence should not be inevitably connected. Yet
the overwhelming evidence from America is that dollars now speak louder
than ideas; that access is bought and sold; and that, unless they have
funds of their own, challengers and third parties are often drowned out.
As a result, ordinary citizens are disillusioned. Since, in their eyes,
the political process is run by special-interest groups and powerful
organisations, fewer and fewer bother to vote.
The free-speech conundrum
So, why not change things? Here Americans start to groan again, for a
more surprising reason. They would love to see reform, but the
constitution's first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech,
stands in the way. According to a Supreme Court ruling of 1976,
political contributions may be limited (since they are open to
corruption), but spending by a candidate or a party may not be, because
this is free speech. This dotty rule--"limited" supply, unlimited
demand--has done much to leave the campaign-finance system in ruins.
Meanwhile, the fixation of candidates on television advertising, the
single most costly element in their campaigns, gets more and more out of
hand; but to restrict their demand to buy it, or the desire of
broadcasters to sell it, is also seen as an unpardonable attack on the
first amend ment. The result is paralysis.
This is ridiculous. Written constitutions are not meant to protect
the status quo if the status quo is rotten. They can, and should,
accommodate reform. The first amendment, in general, is a great and good
thing; there is much to be said for leaving it alone. In some ways, too,
the spending of money must be implicitly protected along with speech.
Politicians, like any advertisers, need to spend money to get their
message out. Yet this does not mean that money spent on selling soap,
and money spent to promote a candidate, should be considered the same.
If the volume of messages from one soapseller squeezes out the message
of all others, so that one soap prevails, this may be just the healthy
interplay of market forces. But if quantity pushes out diversity in a
political campaign, democracy is damaged. And the damage is all the
greater when the price of that freedom is the brazen sale of influence.
Americans might ask themselves why other democracies do not have
the same problems with campaign finance. Certainly, many
countries--Japan, Italy, France and Belgium, to name but four--have had
far more severe episodes of political corruption (see page). But no
developed country suffers a money chase, or voter disillusionment, on
anything like the American scale. The reason is simple: most democracies
put strict limits on candidates' spending and access to broadcasting.
Indeed, in Britain, both candidates and parties are forbidden to buy
television or radio time. Do Britons thereby feel gagged and deprived of
their civil liberties? Not a bit of it. The past months have seen a
perfect avalanche of debate, conducted by billboard and in the page of
the press.
Living with limits
The choice is therefore clear. Americans can either wrap the first
amendment in cotton wool, and retain their stinking campaign-finance
system in its full glory; or they can dare to reopen the debate on what
protection of free speech means, and try to improve matters. It is one
or the other. There are people who argue--as this newspaper once
did--that full disclosure in campaign spending is all that is needed to
purify the system. This argument now looks inadequate. Virtually full
disclosure in America has not yet discouraged determined givers, not
least because of the inevitable lapse between the successful donation
(the candidate elected, the bill passed) and the publication of the
possibly shaming details. Certainly, disclosure should be speeded up,
and penalties for overstepping the line should be made harsher. But,
without curbing demand, where can such a line possibly be drawn?
The Supreme Court's ruling that political spending is tantamount to
speech is already being challenged in court; and limits on spending by
candidates might indeed do something to puncture the endless spiral of
fund-raising. But the lure of the small screen and the 30-second attack
ads would remain as strong as ever. The problem of unbridled demand
might therefore be better tackled by aiming directly at broadcasting.
Here, it is clear that little bits of tinkering (such as requiring
broadcasters to give slots of free time near the election) would have
scarcely any effect. Once the first amendment is touched at all,
reformers may as well think bolder. Why not, for example, impose strict
limits--even a ban--on political advertising on television? American
culture shudders, but logic cheers: the need for money would plummet.
Of course, no system is perfect. Limits on advertising, for
example, would still leave the partisan cable channels in place and
ready to be exploited. Campaign-finance reform is a constantly moving
target; any rules work only for a time, until lawyers and politicians
discover how to break or ignore them. Relentless adjustment takes
effort; human greed for power presses inexorably against it.
Nonetheless, all large democracies try to curb spending, and some even
succeed. They understand that fair democratic process and unbridled free
speech cannot always live together. Will America come to understand that
too?
) Copyright 1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved
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