Montana is not a battleground state, but it has become the latest battleground in campaign finance. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Montana Supreme Court ruling and invalidated a Montana law that limited independent political spending by corporations. Independent spending is money spent by groups outside of and without direction from campaigns. The ruling left in place restrictions on how much individuals and political parties could donate directly to campaigns. This month, a federal judge struck down those limits as well. A federal appeals court temporarily blocked that judgment and asked the lower court judge to offer a more detailed ruling. For now, limits on direct contributions to candidates in Montana remain in place.
The most interesting aspect of Montana’s campaign finance laws is that they show how nonpartisan campaign finance reform can be. Montana has a history of conservatism, voting Republican in thirteen out of the last fifteen presidential elections. Montana also has a history of political corruption: in 1899 William A. Clark, a copper mining baron, bribed state legislators to appoint him to the U.S. Senate. His actions helped lead to the Seventeenth Amendment, which established the direct election of senators. While the conventional wisdom is that Republicans don’t support campaign finance reform, Montana’s history and local politics led them to enact strict campaign finance laws.
When considering money is politics, there are two main questions: Does money influence elections, and does money corrupt politicians? A 2003 paper, titled “Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?,” addresses the second question, and notes several important things: 1) campaign spending has grown at the same rate as the economy, despite our belief that current campaigns are saturated with money, 2) given the potential fiscal effects of public policy, companies should contribute much more than they do, and 3) there is little evidence that money changes legislator behavior. These authors see campaign contributions as a form of civic participation. Many political scientists don’t see campaign money as that benign. Some have written that campaign contributions provide a signal to legislators about what issues are important to certain groups, and influence friendly legislators to devote their time to those issues. Regardless, the cost of modern campaigns means that legislators must spend at least several hours each day fundraising.
The other question, about the effect of spending on the outcome of elections, is also difficult to answer. Despite griping from Democrats, campaign finance probably won’t effect the current presidential election. Total fundraising levels are fairly even, with Obama leading in direct donations and Romney having the edge among outside groups. In addition, the amount of exposure for the national race, combined with the polarized electorate, means the effect of campaign spending is blunted. This doesn’t hold true for local races. In places like Montana, where the electorate is smaller and television airtime is cheap, outside groups can come in and spend enough to have an effect.
Montana tried to fix this problem by capping campaign contributions and mandating disclosure. The McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, a bipartisan bill, tried to do the same thing on a national level. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United undid much of these limits, and removed any restrictions on independent campaign expenditures by corporations and unions. While Citizens United has drawn much ire, the court’s 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo stated that campaign spending is speech, and Congress can’t set limits on such spending. Ever since then groups and candidates have found ways to get money into politics. Citizens United just made it easier. Still, prior research about campaign spending must be reconsidered in light of Citizens United.
Reforming campaign finance is extremely difficult. Most solutions are in the form of public financing; the government either provides all the money candidates use during the election, or matches money raised by the candidates. The Fair Elections Now Act, introduced in the House by two Democrats and a Republican, provides both financing and matching funds, while restricting candidates to small donations. Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has proposed a system where each citizen receives a $50 voucher they contribute to a federal candidate of their choice, and candidates must agree to only take small contributions to participate. By one estimate, “14 states and about a dozen local jurisdictions” provide some kind of public financing, including Maine and Arizona. The problem is that we’ve had public financing for presidential elections since 1976, in the form of matching funds, and the current trend (started by President Obama) is to opt out of the system. Proponents hope that, as these systems spread, there will pressure on candidates to accept public financing. This seems optimistic at best.
Some have suggested a constitutional amendment dealing with campaign finance. This might seem farfetched, but the last amendment was ratified only twenty years ago. That amendment, the Twenty-seventh Amendment, was a measure to restrict Congress from raising its own pay. The amendment underwent a haphazard, grassroots campaign for ratification that stretched back to the country’s founding. This gives hope that enough citizen outrage could lead to a campaign finance amendment.
Despite the academic research that counters the belief that money is corrupting politics, it’s hard to see new fundraising records set every campaign and not get discouraged. In fact, this idea that politics is increasingly a corrupt venue only open to corporations and wealthy donors, and the loss of trust that represents, might be the most harmful thing about our current campaign finance system. Even when a state like Montana is able to agree on tough rules for campaign finance, they can easily be swept aside by the courts. It would seem that the more money seeps into politics, the harder it will be to get out the stain. But Montana, McCain-Feingold, and the Fair Elections Now Act show that campaign finance reform can be bipartisan. And history shows us that corruption can be fought: the Progressive Era reformers worked to stamp out overt corruption at the beginning of the twentieth century. The direct election of senators was one tool they used to accomplish this. Hopefully it won’t take someone like William A. Clark buying senators to ignite a new wave of outrage. But we should be ready with a solution when that moment comes.