It's time for real reform

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend a breakfast with one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates (who shall remain nameless). The breakfast was hosted by a bigwig corporate executive at his home atop Beacon Hill. I was in attendance with a handful of business leaders from around Boston -- we were there to schmooze and to develop a fundraising strategy for the greater-Boston area. Needless to say, I was probably a bit in over my head.

I must admit, though, that I quite enjoyed the event. How often do I get to have a butler bring me hors d'oeuvres while I talk it up with business leaders, Hollywood stars (John Malkovich, of all people, showed up uninvited), and a future-President? But the whole event just reminded me of the dire need for substantive campaign finance reform. Here we had some of the wealthiest and brightest entrepreneurs in the country assembled, not to brainstorm and debate new policy ideas and campaign strategies, but rather to debate the best way to raise boatloads of cash in a hurry. Could each person there commit to raising at least $10,000 in the next month was the first question. Then someone chimed in and suggested that $10,000 was an awfully low figure, that $20,000 should be easily attainable.

Beyond being astonished at how readily those in attendance agreed that this goal was attainable, it was rather depressing that, by necessity, this was their primary concern. I'll concede that given the current system for financing campaigns, every campaign has to seek out corporate executives to raise money this way. But as a result, campaigns have evolved into little more than full-fledged fundraising organizations that happen to buy political ads on TV and the radio on the side. In the process, those executives that raise the most have gained an undue influence over our political leaders and their policies.

We need a real alternative.

There already exists a rather limited system for public financing (more like a system for public subsidization) of presidential campaigns. The system largely consists of dollar-for-dollar federal matching funds for every contribution a candidate receives up to $250. These funds, of course, come with strings attached -- namely in the form of rigid spending limits. It's a good first step, but it does little to remove fundraising from the center of our political process.

The first step towards creating a more substantial system of public financing (and ideally of complete public financing) would require the creation of a source of revenue to fund a federally controlled campaign fund. The current system, to the best of my knowledge, is completely funded by checking that little box on your Federal 1040 tax form that asks if you'd like to contribute $3 to the "Presidential Election Campaign" fund. I'd assume that most scoff at the idea of voluntarily giving even a penny more than is required to the federal government.

For this to really work, there would need to be a stable flow of revenue into the fund. It seems unlikely that a system for complete public financing could be funded by asking taxpayers to check an optional box on their tax returns.

Currently the IRS withholds funds from everyone's paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, so why not do the same to allow for public financing of elections? Arguably, taking the money out of our political system is equally important -- probably even more important -- to the health of our society as Social Security and Medicare. And unlike those cash-cow programs, something on the order of $1 billion a year would likely keep such a fund solvent. The amount withheld from one's paycheck would be miniscule -- think about it this way, if we only had 100 million workers in this country (and the figure is certainly greater than this), only $10 per person would need to be collected every year to fully fund such a system. And since the wealthiest Americans and corporations provide most of the funds to candidates under the current system, we could maintain that spirit by exempting, say, the first $50,000 of one's income from this tax to fund campaigns.

I'd suggest that then an independent commission could convene once a year to divvy up the funds. In a presidential election year, the commission could allot, say, $60 million to each presidential candidate for the general election, maybe $2 million per Senate candidate and $500,000 per Congressional candidate. Granted, it couldn't be this clear-cut; there'd likely need to be a graduated system of disbursing the funds depending on the district, the state, etc. It seems likely even that a mini-bureaucracy would evolve to adequately administer the fund. But I'd prefer that to the current system of candidates trolling for cash at every turn while selling out to the special interest groups with the fattest wallets.

A hurdle to any kind of system of public financing, though, is that it cannot be mandated by law. The Supreme Court would strike down any such system in a New York minute. In this regard, such a system would need to be voluntary for the candidates like the current system for matching funds.

But with an expanded program that could fully fund candidates and allow them to spend their time campaigning rather than fundraising coupled with a public desire for candidates to opt into the system, it seems that it could very well succeed on a voluntary basis. Any candidate that would choose not to abide by such a system would likely be chastised for doing so and would lose favor with the public -- and if for no other reason than that, a system like this could definitely work.

Maybe this is just pie-in-the-sky, but I think that our nation would reap the benefits for some time if we rallied together and pushed for real campaign finance reform. The degree to which money has seeped into the system is repulsive and dangerous and it's time we change it. But in the meantime, I'll enjoy my schmoozing and my hors d'oeuvres while dreaming of a day when candidates for public office can ask voters to share their ideas, not their checkbooks.

Adam Schultz is a senior majoring in political science. He can be reached via email at Schultz@tuftsdaily.com.