Protecting the Wealthy’s “Speech”

Thomas Jefferson’s raison d’être was to protect the taxpayers from the tyranny of public campaign financing?

The First Amendment was put in place to prevent government from financing elections?

Our democracy has worked fine for over 200 years without “government interference?

Not exactly things that (hopefully) you learned in history class and certainly untruths whose sheer inaccuracy is only outdone by its sheer weirdness (Jefferson as anachronistic campaign finance reform foe? Seriously?)

Yet these were the underlying assumptions used today by former FEC chairman Brad Smith when he spoke at the General Assembly about “the evils” of public campaign financing.

Smith was appointed to the FEC by George W. Bush in 2003 and became chairman in 2004. He is now the head of the Center for Competitive Politics, which as far as I can tell is an organization dedicated to weakening and eliminating most campaign finance laws. He was in Raleigh today to give a talk to the Federalist Society and to legislators about Davis v. FEC and what it means for public campaign financing (for the record, it means very little).

During the 45 minutes I listened to him speak, Smith barely mentioned the Davis decision or really the law at all (this from an election law expert!). Instead he stuck mostly to his fantastical history lesson, mixing in an occasional anecdote about public financing gone awry (ghost candidates, union donations, kickbacks, oh my!)….—what he acknowledged were occasional “public financing bloopers” (many of which were later corrected) in seas of success.

At times, he seemed to even like public campaign financing, acknowledging that public financing program’s don’t cost very much (“it really doesn’t cost that much when you compare it to other government spending”) and saying that he could see why someone might think the programs were harmless.

Yet despite his unaffected, calm tone, and his performed even-handedness, he still was asserting that public campaign financing was a really bad thing, that it threatened our basic liberty.

Why was it so bad? What evidence could he present?

His answer stemmed purely from right-wing ideology.

Like most free market fundamentalists who believe the government and any notion of “the public” has absolutely no legitimate role to play in society barring war and (blue collar) crime control, Smith believes public campaign financing is bad because, well, all government financing is bad.

It doesn’t matter how successful public financing has been, how many exciting new candidates have been able to run for office, how high or bipartisan the participation, or how much the program has reduced the role of special interests. In short, it doesn’t matter how good public campaign financing is for our democratic system. In his world, the facts do not matter. It will not work because it should not work.

That’s why Smith didn’t limit his assault to public campaign financing alone—something that would have made his argument much stronger. Like a true crusader, he was pure in his outlook, seeking total victory. Which in this case meant a call for the elimination of most campaign finance laws (“a system that’s opaque and not comprehensible to voters”) and the removal of all government regulation of campaign financing.

He even went as far as to attack the Progressive Era (yes early 20th century) reforms that made it illegal for corporations and unions to write candidates unlimited checks from their company’s or organization’s accounts: “We’ve tried campaign finance reform for the last 100 years and it hasn’t had much salutary effect,” he said.

This coming from the former head of the FEC, the chief entity charged with enforcing campaign finance law. A regulator who doesn’t believe in the regulation he’s been charged with. Remind us much of certain labor department heads, U.N. ambassadors, and FEMA directors?

Though I’m no historian, one thing I do remember learning in U.S. history class is what a mess the late 19th century was: the trusts with their stranglehold on Congress, Upton Sinclair’s accounts of human flesh being mixed in with ground beef, the violent union and farmer suppressions, and the deep-set corruption that stemmed from McKinley’s White House all the way down to the Chicago machine in city hall. At the center of all of these things was an unregulated campaign financing system that allowed the rich and powerful to do whatever they wanted with impunity if not outright government encouragement.

As bad as things are today, they were much worse back then. Campaign finance law is one reason things have gotten dramatically better, and it certainly has helped make possible many of the democratizing shifts that gave people more power: at the ballot, at the workplace, and in the household. With record spending by special interest groups, skyrocketing election costs, and an economic recession that was spawned at least in part by powerful interests gutting regulation, we need more tools and reform, not less—we need public campaign financing now more than ever. Which is why Smith’s ideological position, considering his former FEC chairmanship, is so peculiar.

If not public campaign financing, what would Smith have us do?

When asked to name one alternative solution he quibbled with the assertion itself (“Do you really think our elected officials are affected by their campaign contributors?”). When a Republican legislator countered that campaign money does influence candidates, he did finally acknowledge that it could be an issue (“Obviously money has some influence)” but in any case government couldn’t do anything about it.

While he was hemming and hawing, he continued to be pressed. What was his solution? Certainly this renowned election law attorney, this former head of the government’s most powerful campaign financing regulatory agency, this self-described campaign finance law expert had at least one idea for a solution.

Finally, he presented two things: the First Amendment (“The First Amendment is the solution. Allowing people to speak more is the solution… “) and disclosure.

That is, a “solution” that consists of two things that already exist. Two ideas for change that actually do not change anything at all.

And there was the answer. There was no solution. Things are just fine the way they are. Or to be more precise, things were just fine in back in the robber baron days before campaign finance reform and, to quote Grover Norquist, “Teddy Roosevelt and the socialists took over.”

Smith’s (and others) status-quo-preserving-position sees nothing wrong with the wealthy using their money to buy political influence and access or with PACs spending millions preserving tax loopholes for their industries and special preferences for their friends. Let the market decide. It will work its magic. If an elected official is bought by one special interest group, there’s nothing to stop another special interest group from coming and paying a higher price for that official’s loyalty. What could be a more perfect way to run politics than through the laws of supply and demand?

As Smith said, “We should just trust the voters to make the best choices,” while allowing whoever has a million bucks to pummel those voters with misinformation and scurrilous attack ads against their opponent.

Smith’s presentation was nothing more than a resuscitation of Candide’s Pangloss.

Despite the grave failures of the current campaign financing, the horrific consequences of a campaign financing system run amuck on display all around us, and the very real promise public campaign financing is offering in states like Maine, Arizona, Connecticut, and here in North Carolina, Smith still believes that there is no alternative, that the current system is the best that it could ever be. In Smith’s mind, a system where private interests run government, is indeed “the best of all possible worlds.”