There are good reasons to reject the notion that campaign money is a form of free speech that nurtures democracy. One particular danger from the Supreme Court’s actions is the increased probability that businesses will stifle progressive change. Officials who enthusiastically support corporate power may be rewarded by massive increases in spending on issue and candidate ads that benefit them during re-election, while candidates who support progressive reform will be the subject of an organized business onslaught that is without financial restrictions.
The complexities of campaign finance already strongly favored business interests prior to this ruling. It’s difficult to see how reducing restrictions on lobbying will not further tip the scales in favor of business. Consider some of the following evidence regarding the entrenchment of corporate electoral power:
- Business elites already exercise the power of the purse over campaign contributions, in addition to dominating the interest group process more generally. The vast majority of campaign contributions in the 2008 election – 71 percent – came from business PACs and individuals associated with business, contrasted with just 2.7 percent of contributions from labor PACs and those associated with labor. This pattern is longstanding: 75 percent of all contributions also came from business in the 2000 election, with just 5.5 percent from labor. Privileged actors including business, trade and professional associations - which combine to form the heart of the capitalist economy - account for approximately 74 percent of the competing sides of public policy conflicts in Washington, as compared to citizens groups, unions, and all other interest groups, which make up just 10 percent of all actors.
- Business is in the best position to benefit from escalating campaign costs. Incumbents are increasingly forced to raise small fortunes to win or remain in office. While the average winner of a Senate election spent $5.2 million in 1998, that had increased to $8.5 million by 2008 (a 63 percent increase). Similarly, the average House winner spent $650,000 in 1998, and $1.37 million in 2008 (a 110 percent increase). Scholarly studies of Congress find a strong positive relationship between campaign contributions from interest groups and legislators’ voting on bills benefitting those groups. While this relationship is not consistent for public policy issues that are of high salience and strongly contested, the relationship holds for low visibility issues – which account for the vast majority of bills passed.
- Campaign Contributions and spending are most common among those of extreme wealth, not the common person. Consider that the 2008 election was the most expensive in U.S. history, with $5.3 billion raised by all candidates (compared to $4 billion in 2004). In a time when money increasingly dominates elections, those who provide contributions will exercise a major advantage in aiding their preferred candidates. In the 2002 election cycle, the richest .1 percent of Americans dominated this process, providing 80 percent of all campaign contributions. Business power is dispersed across both parties; in the 2008 election, business gave 54 percent of their donations to Democrats, and 46 percent to Republicans. The most dominant of all contributors to both parties – those who are in the best position to gain from the recent ruling – include the finance, insurance, real estate, and health care industries.
- Business interests give disproportionately more to incumbents, helping the current office holders in both parties to solidify their monopoly power and limit democratic competition. In the 1990s, it was common for incumbents in contested elections to receive 83 to 93 percent of the total contributions for their races. Business dominated elections in the U.S. are extremely uncompetitive because of the dominance of incumbents. On average, 86 percent of Senate incumbents were re-elected in the six Congressional elections from 1998 to 2008, while an average of 96 percent of House incumbents were re-elected. “Congressional stagnation” has become a serious problem, considering that the primary requisite for democratic elections is competitiveness. As of 2002, only 39 of the 435 races in the House were won with less than 55 percent of the vote. Essentially, this means that just 9 percent of House races were competitive, meaning they had an electoral margin of victory of less than ten percent. This problem continues today, with just 11 percent of elections being competitive in 2008 and with the incumbency re-election rate at 94 percent for the House and 83 percent for the Senate.
What are we to take from all these statistics? To summarize: elections are already extremely expensive and becoming more so. Business and other privileged actors dominate the electoral process, as they are the main actors in Washington and the primary financial supporters for elections. Finally, elections are largely uncompetitive with corporate financed incumbents monopolizing campaign contributions in order to appeal to the largest number of voters.
Most scholars refuse to take issue with corporate dominated elections. The dominant view in political science is that American elections are generally democratic affairs that allow voters to connect with officials in pursuit of the common good. If elections are uncompetitive, these academics often argue, it’s because the public is already so happy with its leaders and the benefits they provide in the form of constituency service and representation. There’s little reason to take these assumptions seriously in light of the widespread distrust of all levels of government among the public. According to the American National Election Study of 2004, 56 percent of Americans said “the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves” rather than “for the benefit of all the people.” By late 2008 the Program on International Policy Attitudes reported that 80 percent of Americans felt government was run by “a few big interests.” The same study found that 80 percent of Americans felt that “the public should have greater influence on government” than they currently do. ...
...
In the arena of political advertising, the Supreme Court’s empowerment of corporate interest groups poses an additional problem. Relaxation of the rules governing campaign ads allows business groups to increase their efforts to manipulate voters’ opinions. Voters often react strongly to political advertising.
...
Gallup reports that 55 percent of Americans think that the “same rules [should] apply to corporations, unions, and individuals” for campaign advertising. Their opinions might radically change if they were aware of the electoral trends discussed here. When I teach American Government, my students typically enter the course with little knowledge of politics and elections. Students become far more critical, however, after a review of the facets of the election business discussed above. Most Americans know little about the problems confronting our electoral system. Sadly, their ignorance is likely to continue in light of a Supreme Court ruling that emboldens privileged actors who operate behind the electoral scenes.
Anthony DiMaggio teaches American and Global Politics at Illinois State University. He is the author of Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008) and the forthcoming When Media Goes to War (2010). He can be reached atadimagg@ilstu.edu
No comments:
Post a Comment