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When it comes to raising money to run a campaign an ideal legislator needs to understand the real value of money in politics. They need to accept that a serious campaign will require more money than they can personally supply (unless they have significant personal wealth). They need to be comfortable asking people to support them financially – that requires not only being comfortable making the request, but also confident in the message they are promoting in their campaign. On the other hand, an ideal legislator should never fall into the trap of thinking that money can overcome the absolute necessity for them to be putting in hard work on the ground making their case among the people who will be casting their votes.
Here is where I know some people will disagree with me. I contend that a campaign even for federal offices can be financed entirely through personal donations by people residing within the jurisdiction of the office being sought. Contributions from businesses should be refused. Businesses and industries that are part of the district for the office being sought should make any desired contributions through the individuals within those companies. Money from Political Action Committees should not be given to specific candidates. Committees that wish to help a candidate should spend their own money in whatever way they feel will best help the candidate without the candidate ever receiving any money from them. “Abc PAC” can endorse a candidate, can buy booths saying they support that candidate, can make and distribute literature and other advertising materials for the candidate, but should not write a check to the candidate. Anything they produce should never have the candidate saying that they approved the message – in other words, the PAC and the candidate should be independent of each other with full right to voice their support of the efforts of the other.
Personally I would prefer that a candidate never run a campaign on debt although I am not ready to say that I could never support a candidate that uses debt to help finance their campaign. I would say that no good candidate should ever carry debt from one campaign to another. If they have not paid off their expenses from a previous campaign (for the same office or another office) they should not be running a new campaign.
I know that there are people who would argue that this ideal is not feasible in our current political environment and I am open to thoughts on what can and should be done, but please don’t just shoot down my ideal without explaining why we should not desire it.
10 replies on “Legislator as Fundraiser”
I agree in a no debt idea. Campaigns cost a lot of money, especially if we want to unseat an incumbant.
The only problems I see (and I admit that sometimes I can be very myopic) are: (1) the legislator should be legislating for two years, not just one and then running for re-election, including obtaining financing; and (2) what is the “true” cost of getting someone’s money–that ultimate payoff to those who finance the campaign. Eliminating the business contributions and the PAC contributions might mitigate the second point somewhat.
Despite not liking the candidate, President Obama financially supported much of his campaign through the individual contributions and through intelligent use of the internet. It may have helped in the election as well when those contributors put their votes with their money.
I do like the component of your plan that puts the “fundraiser” in front of the “funder” to state his/her case and positions. But, I’m not quite sure how that is significantly different than what–in theory–currently happens.
Ultimately, getting honest representation is what all of us would be buying and voting for, and although it does cost money to get elected, the money always seem to have some corrupting influence.
Of course I can’t prove this (at least not without someone actually trying it, winning, and serving) but I believe that a legislator who did not take money except from individuals residing in their district would have a better chance of not letting those who helped fund their campaign overly influence their legislative decisions than those who receive very large sums of money from very specific groups in the form of corporate donations and PAC money.
Interesting thought on keeping the contributions strictly from individuals within the district. Any thoughts on maximum contributions by individuals?
Ideally there would be no need to have a maximum contribution for individuals, but in the current environment I don’t see any value in opposing reasonable maximums (like what we have now for federal elections).
Hmmm…. Restricting the amount an individual can give restricts freedom of speech, regardless of how courts have ruled on the matter. Resources (represented by money) = the ability to have your voice heard.
I’m not exactly sure how requiring businesses to donate indirectly is an improvement. I’d rather have a clear picture of who is giving what to each candidate. Since businesses can be dramatically impacted by government, should they be cut off from direct donation?
Arm’s length campaigning by third parties (i.e. PACs) for a specific candidate is an impossible mythical creation. Nothing like this ever happens without some kind of coordination without it resulting in being an embarrassment for the candidate. Maybe this could work in utopia, but it seems awfully puerile to think it could work in real life.
The interesting thing is that no laws or policies would have to be changed for your ideal candidate to implement the kind of plan you have described. In fact, a candidate could make the funding issue a major point of his/her campaign.
But you are talking about a lot of work. Your ideal candidate would need to do a lot of personal work to have a broad enough contributor base to be competitive. Undoubtedly this would require a fundraising organization. With the increase of caller ID, the telemarketing approach is becoming less effective. Candidates that develop a celebrity persona and following would certainly have a leg up in getting broad based voluntary donations over your more lackluster roll-up-the-sleeves (but possibly more effective) type.
I’m not trying to shoot down all of your arguments. I’m merely thinking in reality mode. I guess what I’d like is to see an example of a (non-celebrity) candidate effectively running a campaign like this.
Like I said, I am not in favor of limiting individual contributions, but it’s not worth it to me right now to fight the current restrictions on individual donations. (For most people the current limits are more than they can afford so they are not really limiting.) As far as the disadvantages of forcing their parties to operate at arms length – I don’t really have a problem with the possibility that their efforts can become embarrassing to the candidate they are trying to help.
It is my belief that it is a very rare circumstance where a person is legally prevented from doing the right thing (more rare than being legally discouraged from doing the right thing). That being said, I agree that it would require a lot of hard work to campaign as I have outlined. I think that hard work would weed out virtually any candidate who was not very committed to whatever they were trying to accomplish.
I would love to see a non-celebrity candidate run such a race as well. In fact, as an undeniable non-celebrity I would be more than happy to run such a campaign. I am realistic enough to know that as a non-celebrity there is a long road of groundwork that I would have to lay before I could hope to run a campaign with any chance of being taken seriously. If I ever feel that I have laid that groundwork you can bet that I will run in the first race where I am not satisfied with any existing candidates. (That shouldn’t be too hard to come by unless our candidates improve before I am ready to run.)
I appreciate your willingness to put your money where your mouth is on this issue.
But I have a question. If you were to run, say, for a position in the Utah State House of Representatives, would you have to refuse a donation of time or money from me (given that I don’t live in your district)?
You see, I think that anybody that would work to implement principles of good government would be worthy of my support, regardless of where they live.
I absolutely agree that anybody willing to implement principles of good government is worthy of receiving support from all who desire such principles to be implemented. Despite that belief I have to go with sticking to principles rather than sacrificing for a convenient financial boost.
I’m going to split hairs a bit here and say that yes, I would feel obligated to refuse a donation of money from anyone outside my district (there is part of me that would wish to make an exception for immediate family members but even then I’m not sure I would accept such donations). On the other hand, donations of time and influence are acceptable.
In other words, if you believed in my candidacy enough to endorse me publicly, even if you went so far as to come to my district and speak to voters in support of my candidacy I would consider that a perfectly acceptable way to lend support from outside the district.
Refusing monetary donations from outside the district would definitely put such a candidate at a disadvantage, but I think it would say a lot to the people of the district that the candidate intended to represent them and not any outside entity.
I appreciate that stand. I guess some would say that money and influence are somewhat equivalent. But a person from outside of the district vouching to district voters about a candidate’s character is almost the ultimate in transparency. Voters can judge for themselves based on the character of the person doing the vouching. I’d say that’s qualitatively different than a monetary donation.
Besides being qualitatively different, there was one more factor that lead me to that position – a candidate can’t prevent an outsider from offering an endorsement, the “best” the candidate could do would be to waste time and energy refuting such endorsements or even simply asking people not to make them. That would be counterproductive and send the message that the candidate wants to stand alone – which is not a good message for a public servant to be sending.