The Politics of Money in Politics

The recent announcement that Lawrence Lessig was exploring the idea of running for president raises two interesting issues. First, the principal reasoning behind his interest in running for president, in that he feels that present system of democracy in the United States has been flawed for some time now and feels other methods have not produced desired results at remedying these flaws. As Mr. Lessig tells it these flaws are largely born of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling in 2010, which changed the political environment to basically allow for an infinite amount of money to influence the democratic process in every election. Due to this new influx of money a number of individuals, including Mr. Lessig, believe that the inherent principal nature of power equality that is representative of an indirect democracy has been lost resulting in the very real possibility that democracy in the United States could transition into an oligarchy.

Mr. Lessig’s concern about this issue is so significant that it raises the second issue, the very nature of his tenure as President. For Mr. Lessig the importance of maintaining democracy should exceed everything else, but he believes, and justifiably so, that the existing field of presidential hopefuls will be unable to exclusively focus on this issue as they would have a number of other domestic and foreign policy issues to addresses as well. Thus, Mr. Lessig’s candidacy and resultant presidency is similar to that of a referendum. His entire platform is that he will devote the entire focus and power of the his presidency to ensuring the maintenance of democracy, which will largely involve eliminating the mass influx of money into the political process either through the repeal of the Citizens United ruling or another method. After accomplishing this goal Mr. Lessig would resign as President leaving the remainder of his term to his Vice President.

The more important of these two issues is whether or not Mr. Lessig is correct to view the unlimited influx of money into the political process as a chief threat to democracy. The trademark notion of a democracy is “one person one vote” implying equal influence from all voting parties regardless of position or standing. There has been no change in this practice regardless of the level of money committed to a given election cycle. However, some would argue that the evolution of the political system in the United States has created an environment where any elected position of significant consequence demands a large amount of money to purchase advertisement and conduct other publicity activities in order to have a reasonable chance at winning. This monetary demand places an additional motivational incentive on potential candidates to abide by the wishes of those that have the ability to donate large sums of money at multiple instances. Also a greater influx of money may influence the candidate pool keeping individuals that might otherwise run for a position from doing so under the belief that they could not raise enough money to be competitive.

So the question boils down to how much of an influence does money have on the ability of an individual to be elected in a given political race? Clearly there have been no significant cases of individuals literally selling their votes, that is an arrangement being made between a voter and a supporter of candidate A that said voter will vote for candidate A for 50 dollars. Therefore, if money is not used to directly “purchase” votes, what purpose does it serve in an election? The principal purpose of money in an election is to maximize information distribution for a given candidate. Basically the real advantage of candidate A having more money than candidate B is that it allows candidate A to take advantage of the interest and time limitations possessed by the electorate.

For example instead of depending on a potential voter taking the initiative to look up the official position of candidate A on issue Y, spending money allows candidate A and his/her supporters to present the position of candidate A on issue Y directly to the voter via some form of media advertising be it television/radio/print/Internet or via direct interaction with a candidate A supporter. In addition to significantly increasing the odds of potential voters knowing the position of candidate A on issue Y, the fact that candidate A and his/her supporters are creating the delivery mechanism of the information allows them to frame the information in such a way that if desired the core message could be prone to misinterpretations or even outright lies that favor candidate A. This action can also be used against competitors framing their positions in such a way that could make them less attractive to voters.

The next question is how important is this information capacity in an election? This issue has two different parts: first, how valuable is information in an election and second, how much information is available? Starting with the second issue first, in the Internet era for modern developed countries there is little ability to “bottleneck” information or control the information stream. Gone are the days when someone could simply spend enough money or favors to shutout another candidate’s message altogether. The principal advantage of money with respects to this second issue is the ability to saturate information on all forms of delivery systems: television, radio, Internet, hiring people to “spread the word” in public areas, etc. However, money is not the limiting factor controlling the actual ability to distribute information, it simply allows for the more efficiency spread of that information.

Even though money is not a limiting factor controlling the basics of information distribution in a political campaign, is it a critical factor that can dramatically increase the probability of winning? This question is the central question in the first issue of the importance of information capacity: how valuable is information? The value of information in a political election is almost exclusively associated with its ability to produce votes for the candidate. Voters will not vote for candidate A based on two central elements: 1) the voter does not have information pertaining to candidate A either as a person and/or political position; 2) the voter’s political values and/or social values are significantly different from those of candidate A.

In the first scenario the value of information is important for on the most basic level (not taking into consideration the specific characterizations of the candidate and the potential voters) there is a greater likelihood of an individual voting for candidate A if they are known versus voting for candidate A if they are not known. While it is certainly possible that a voter will not vote for candidate A after learning of their political/social values, it is also possible that they will vote for candidate A. Therefore, the behavior of the voter changes from a base low value (typically involving whether or not the individual will vote in the first place) to either a slightly lower value (disagreement with newly understood positions of candidate A) or significantly higher (agreement with the newly understood positions of candidate A). Overall it makes sense to inform voters regarding the important positions and traits of candidate A both logically and practically.

However, it must be noted that the importance of expelling anonymity is inversely proportional to the scope of the election because of the validity of that anonymity. Basically if candidate A is running for a position on the School Board for Smith country there is a good possibility that candidate A will be unfamiliar to a number of potential voters because the perceived importance and scope of that position is small, thus information about candidate A is important to dispel that lack of knowledge. On the other hand if candidate A is running for one of the two U.S. Senate positions representing the state of California, it is highly unlikely that potential voters will be unaware of the important elements, both political and social, representing candidate A. Note that social elements must be included when discussing information distribution because a number of voters vote not on the political issues supported by a candidate, but on whether or not they like the candidate, which could have little to do with the candidate’s political positions.

In the second scenario there is little money can do to produce votes for candidate A. If voter y is aware of the political positions and social standing of candidate A and his/her personal viewpoints are in opposition to candidate A’s positions then further information distribution is basically a waste of resources. The immediate question regarding the above statement is why does the distribution of counter information have such little influence that it can be so readily considered a waste of resources?

There are two significant reasons for the above statement:

1) In recent years, in large part thanks to a loud and more radicalized Conservative movement and to a lesser extent similar Progressive movement, voters in general have become much more polarized on a wide breadth of political issues creating a hostile environment to ideas that run counter these opinions, thereby further limiting an already small group of “convincible” middle-ground of potential voters. In fact there are even more party-line voters and single-issue voters that have mindsets so etched in stone that even if valid empirical evidence suggests that mindset is not accurate they ignore that empirical evidence. Basically in general there are more individuals who are less likely to even listen to a viewpoint that opposes their personal viewpoint, let alone debate the fine points of either viewpoint, than there have been in the past;

2) Political insidiousness and desire for retaining power has resulted in gerrymandering various Congressional districts, which has also been indirectly related to the general break of diversity within a number of established communities creating more homogenous neighborhoods leading to the production of group-think single party voting blocs. Due to the presence of these voting blocs it is very difficult for opposing ideas to establish any meaningful foothold, especially due to the greater polarization of political environments as mentioned in reason one. These areas are a significant reason behind why winning percentages are so high for incumbents.

The above discussion produces an interesting question for Mr. Lessig’s position that the potential influence of unlimited money is the principal threat to the equality of democracy (i.e. a representative democracy that represents each person equally). If theoretically money has no direct influence and little indirect influence on acquiring votes and in practice political science studies have produced conflicting results on the total value of money in an election, can the potential influence of unlimited money in elections really be viewed as the principal threat to democracy?

Another concern with studying the issue of corruption via money is what process is used to determine whether a lawmaker is simply voting on their personal ideals (candidate A voting in favor of tax breaks for corporation W because he (stupidly) believes in the validity of supply-side economics), versus whether he is voting against his ideals to fulfill the Faustian bargain to a corporation (corporation W donated 1.5 million dollars to his previous campaign and plans to donate another 1.5 million to his next, so he votes in favor of tax breaks for corporation W)? This important issue is rarely addressed when discussing money and its potential corrupting influence in politics.

Overall one could argue that the genuine problem with money in politics is that the money is being wasted for minimal advantage advertising instead of being spent on improving the domestic economy through investment or charitable donations. Perhaps the false perception of the advantage of money in politics is the real problem not the actual influence of money. For example Mr. Lessig and others that share his position have noted that it takes significantly more money to be elected to a given position of government now than it did decades ago, but is this statement actually valid? For example typically statements like that do not correct for inflation or how increases in population have increased the perceived advantage for more money, which would be a “natural” occurrence. Also there have been a number of races where candidate A has defeated candidate B despite candidate B outspending candidate A by 5, 6 or even 10x.

However, for the sake of argument assume for the moment that Mr. Lessig’s point about the dangers of money is accurate. The next concern for Mr. Lessig is what can be done about it? If elected president Mr. Lessig would only have the power of the Executive branch of government in which to act against the Citizens United ruling, a branch that has little to no real power to produce the type of change that Mr. Lessig desires. One could argue that his election would produce a “mandate” to challenge the Citizens United ruling, but what real power would this challenge have?

First, the idea of “mandates” are really only political theater anyways for in the past there was some level of concession by the opposing political party with the acknowledgement that “the will/voice of the people” had spoken and it would be inappropriate to obstruct the plans of the new administration and/or Congress out of petty spite. Of course that was then, the political climate now has certainly revealed that petty spite is fashionable. Mr. Lessig is certainly aware that the Republican Party, which has taken advantage of this new environment more so than the Democratic Party, would be his main legislative opposition to accomplishing his goal? Simply “invoking” the “mandate” of his election will not be sufficient to make them allies or have them “fall in line”.

Second, even if Congress did act against the Citizens United ruling, what could it do that would not be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court by the proponents of the ruling? It stands to reason that the current existing U.S. Supreme Court would overturn any legislative action that sought to weaken the “freedoms” granted by the Citizens United ruling. It has already demonstrated this motivation to some extent in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock rejecting a Montana state law that limited corporate campaign contributions even after the Montana State Supreme Court ruled that the law was narrowly tailored enough that it withstood strict scrutiny.

Realistically it appears that at the moment only two things will allow for the restriction of excessive amounts of money from the political system. First, a change in the political ideology of the U.S. Supreme Court and a re-evaluation of the legal structure of the Citizens United ruling regarding the potential for corruption in the political system due to the influx of money resulting in this new Supreme Court overturning the Citizens United ruling, similar to how Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. Second, a new Constitutional Amendment explicitly addressing the issues associated with the Citizens United ruling, with the most popular type of amendment eliminating the ability of a corporation to be considered a “person” in the context of free speech. Outside of these two strategies, what can be done? Mr. Lessig’s emphasis about the advantage of focus, limiting money being the only issue behind his presidency, has little meaning for it is not a limiting factor in accomplishing his goal; the issue cannot be solely resolved by effort and trying hard. The limiting factor is the probability of success associated with the limited number of available strategies.

Another concern is the idea that a single-minded focused mandate, which the election of Mr. Lessig would represent, can be established solely because polling information report that 80% - 85% of those polled, with little difference between political affiliations, believe that the potential of unlimited money in the political system is a big problem or “rigs the system”. Unfortunately, something the environmental movement is intimately familiar with is that just because a vast majority thinks a certain way in isolation does not mean that same majority is willing to work to accomplish that viewpoint. Basically while 80% of those polled consistently want money out of politics, how important is it to them to accomplish that goal, i.e. will they prioritize removing money from politics over various other economic issues, foreign policy issues, environmental issues, etc?

As it currently stands based on previous actions, these respondents and potential voters appear to think the removal of money from politics is not very important because where are the droves of candidates making the removal of money from politics their number one campaign issue because it is so important to their constituents and will dramatically increase the probability of getting them elected? Basically if so many people think that money is rigging the system and that resultant corruption is of the utmost importance to address, there should be no difficulty finding numerous candidates that will vote to eliminate money from the political process on the most stringent level allowed by law versus tying their ideals to the pocketbook of corporation y or donor z. Clearly, and unfortunately, this is not the case. On its face it appears that Mr. Lessig has fallen into the typical single-issue trap of thinking that because the issue is very important to him, it must also be, guaranteed without question, very important to a lot of other people.

Some could argue that an important response is to increase the power of transparency in the contribution system by disallowing individuals to make anonymous donations, produce anonymous pitch material, etc. The general idea behind this belief appears to be that through the creation of a political environment where individuals that donate large sums of money must make those donations in a completely transparent manner and those that use the money must outline how it was used it, the probability of immoral actions will be reduced significantly limiting the overall negative influence of money in politics.

The problem with this strategy is that it does not address the saturation mindset. It stands to reason that most people believe that all candidates are taking money from some form of special interest and/or large corporate donors (even the small third party ones regardless of whether or not they actually are), so no candidate is “clean”. Some could counter-argue that if potential voters are made aware of monetary donations and expenditures then they could seek out candidates who have received no money or significantly less money and characterize those candidates as “not beholden to special interests”. The concern with this reasoning is that receipt of donated money becomes a single issue. It is difficult to envision a scenario where an individual votes against a candidate that shares his/her viewpoint on a wide variety of issues if it is revealed that the candidate has taken a lot of money from special interest groups.

Therefore, ‘taking money from special interest groups’ will be regarded as just one of many issues that is considered by a voter when deciding on which candidate to vote for. Unfortunately due to the fact that messaging and access is heavily influenced by money it seems very probable that very few candidates will refrain from taking special interest money when available to them, regardless of any transparency requirements. If this scenario comes to pass then with every viable candidate feeling it necessary to take money, the previous public psychological assertion become true: everyone is taking money, everyone is dirty, thus it does not matter who takes money. Certainly establishing transparency should be done because it is a logical and fair idea and will help increase the probability of more complete information profiles on candidates for potential voters; however, without offering an effective way to remove money from the system, it is unlikely that any transparency strategy will have any real positive effect regarding money in the political system.

Another option put forth by Mr. Lessig, among other parties with other systems, is the idea of Democracy Vouchers where tax rebates to a certain value (currently $50) are reserved for the exclusive donation to a certain political campaign or issue. The belief is that by resorting to a law of scales, volume will be able to cancel out the influence of the high value low volume donor class, which is viewed as the chief problem in the system. Unfortunately this type of plan is flawed in numerous ways. The chief flaws have already been discussed in a previous post here. Another potential flaw in Mr. Lessig’s personal idea is that because the vouchers are tax-based there would be some question to whether or not individuals who do not pay taxes would also receive the $50 or be shutout. If they were shutout then clearly such a program would not be living up to Mr. Lessig’s idea of an equal representational democracy.

Overall the idea of attempting to defeat “bad money” with “good money” be it from the public or from “good PACs”, etc) is rather foolish because of issues regarding sustainability in that what government programs get cut each year due to the loss of billions of dollars returned to the public to “invest” in politics and simple practicality for the polarization of politics have heavily limited the coordinated influence of volume politics. For example in its initial attempt to influence the political landscape in 2014 Mr. Lessig’s personal Super PAC, Mayday, was a significant failure. Basically plans like Brennan Center-Democracy 21 Federal financing and Democracy Vouchers a more likely to exacerbate the problem of money in politics, not act as a “correcting” force if they do anything at all.

On a side note while the idea of a “referendum president” is somewhat interesting, its general characterization can be looked upon more as a novelty than anything significant especially because without a definitive timeline for when the resignation would take place, voter decision-making becomes complicated. For example it is concerning to think how a “referendum president” would handle a catastrophic domestic or foreign event? Would the Vice-President simply handle those potential events? Who would foreign leaders interact with when addressing foreign policy? Etc.

Overall the idea of removing money from politics in effort to ensure a fair democracy and minimize corruption does not appear to be an effective battle strategy to ensure these characteristics. The concern is both the ability to remove money and whether or not money is actually a real problem. A fair and effective democracy is served by three essential elements: voting access, informed voters and voting power. In this country none of these elements are at what one could say “full strength”.

The first element to a fair and effective democracy is ensuring appropriate voting access where the requirements one must meet to be eligible to vote are fair, universally applied and transparent. Unfortunately this simple requirement is not being met by a number of regions; instead these areas are attempting to circumvent fairness by forcing individuals to acquire some form of governmental issue photo identification at personal cost under the false pretense of preventing voter fraud. Such unnecessary and frivolous demands are much more dangerous to a fair and effective democracy than potential unlimited money because it directly influences who can vote.

The second element to an effective democracy is ensuring an informed and motivated electorate. Recall that the principal role money plays is information exchange. Therefore, the best way to make money irrelevant is to create an informed and committed electorate invalidating the purpose of money. The point of a representative democracy is that voters who vote for the winner feel that their viewpoints are being presented and fought for in the appropriate governmental body. The influence of money is only negative when that expectation is not met; when those who have voted for the winner do not have their elected official arguing in favor of their viewpoints instead that elected official is arguing in favor for viewpoints that contrast or are not important those of the majority at the behest of a wealthy donor minority.

The best way to expose this betrayal of duty is an informed and committed electorate, one that knows what they want out of their elected official(s), not one that simply holds on to old ideas and/or votes a single-party ticket solely because the candidate has a certain letter besides their name on the ballot. If the electorate does not choose to inform themselves then it is difficult to judge whether or not money is corrupting the process; however, the electorate must be given tools to access the appropriate information. Therefore, candidates must be obligated to produce information packages regarding important issues and their stances on those issue that can be distributed via mail, posted online or with existing hard copies at government buildings and libraries. A guaranteed information source will allow voters to inform themselves in a non-bias or “spin” manner.

The third element to a fair and effective democracy is currently the one most lacking of the three. Unfortunately there is a significant lack of honesty and logic in the political process, which significantly hinders the total expression of voting power. For example a politician can make statement A to the public, but actually support an opposing position and as long as the public is not able to discover that opposing belief in time, the politician can be elected on a basis of false pretenses. This reality is especially relevant when the position of a corporation and large political donor may be in direct contrast with the position of the general public. How can voting have any real power when a politician can simply lie about his/her position until elected?

Some would argue that if an elected official lies about what they would seek to accomplish the only real response is that the public takes the philosophy of “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” and when the individual comes up for re-election vote him/her out of office. However, what type of display of power is that? Lie and get some number of years of guaranteed elected office? How is that fair and just? Therefore, what type of process can be used to sort out false statements? Should each candidate be expected to produce a “beliefs” contract that if deviated from once elected would produce just cause for termination from that position? If this occurred what would be the process for the candidate to change his/her opinion on an issue if a mistake in reasoning was discovered? It stands to reason that a new system is needed for clearly the existing process of recall is not sufficient to ensure the power and wishes of the majority of the electorate.

Overall the potential candidacy of Mr. Lessig for President of the United States appears inherently questionable because the methodology Mr. Lessig supports for removing money from politics is unclear and the most plausible options are either not viable or are not significantly aided by Mr. Lessig being President. Incidentally attempting to remove money from politics through a direct “limitation” by neutralizing the Citizens United ruling seems very difficult at this point in time and without any real probability of success any attempt would result in wasted effort and resources. Instead of attempting to neutralize money through its forced removal or by countering it with even more money, focusing on neutralizing the influence of money through voter empowerment and ensuring voter influence should be a more viable way of facilitating a legitimate, fair and effective democracy.

Analysis of Brennan Center-Democracy 21 Federal Public Financing Plan

The impact of money continues to be felt in the U.S. political system. The principal complaint with “Citizens United” and “Speechnow.org” is that they ‘break’ government by creating an environment where elected individuals are beholden to special interests due to their financial donation power through both individual contributions and Super PACs. This fear is magnified by the polarization of politics in that there are apparently so few individuals who are undecided in a given election, capitalization for advertisement is essential to reach these individuals and attempt to convince them to vote for a given candidate. Therefore, some believe elected officials carry out the agenda of those who can provide sufficient monetary donations to increase the probability that elected officials retain their position largely ignoring the needs or desires of those individuals who cannot donate large sums of money to a re-election campaign.

There are three overall strategies to address the influence of money created by the above court rulings: 1) Remove money from the political system; 2) Neutralize the money by creating other fundraising opportunities; 3) Neutralize the utility of money in campaigns. Unfortunately due to the specifics of “Citizens United”, “Speechnow.org” and an uncooperative Congress removing money from the system does not appear to be a valid option at this time or in the near future. That leaves the option of neutralizing the influence of money. Brennan Center-Democracy 21 believes they have a solution, which attempts to create an augmented fundraising source.1 The idea is an expansion of the presidential financing system, which began in the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments initiated by the Watergate scandal, to all Congressional candidates with a greater emphasis on small donations.

Since its establishment the presidential financing system has been regarded as a significant success theoretically opening the election process to numerous candidates from different backgrounds and financial standings, reducing the influence of individuals and groups and acting as a significant barrier to corruption. Unfortunately with the total money spent in elections dramatically increasing the presidential financing system is no longer able to provide an effective monetary substitute as witnessed by presidential candidates like Barrack Obama in 2008 and Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 not accepting the matching funds and their restrictions. Also while 64% of eligible Americans voted in the 2008 Presidential election less than 0.5% were responsible for a vast majority of the funds that were donated by individual contributors.1 Therefore, the Brennan Center-Democracy 21 plan intends to increase the ability to fund federal candidates, not only presidential candidates, by augmenting funding through small denomination monetary donors.1 The crux of the plan breaks down as followed:

1) Individual state residents will have contributions of up to $250 matched with government funds on a 5 to 1 ratio. Basically if a voter donates $250 the federal government will add $1,250 to that donation for a total $1,500 donation;

2) The program is optional and candidates participating in this new program will only be allowed to accept a maximum of $1,250 from a single individual instead of the existing limit of $2,500. However, because of the multiplier a $1,250 donation in the program will equal a $2,500 donation to a candidate not participating in the program;

3) There is a cap on the amount of funds that government will provide. The suggested cap is $2 million for a House candidate and $10 million for a Senate candidate. However, while there is a cap for the amount of funds that will be matched by government there are no expenditure or total fundraising limits for participating candidates;

4) A donor floor must be achieved before the government funds are distributed. The purpose of this floor is to limit the number of uncompetitive or marginal/fringe candidates. The suggested floor is defined for House candidates as $40,000 from at least 400 donors and for Senate candidates as $40,000 from at least 400 donors multiplied by the number congressional districts in the given state. Note that only the $250 or lower donations from in-state residents count towards this dollar floor;

5) National Party committees can coordinate unlimited cash infusions to support a candidate, but these funds must be drawn from a donor pool that operates under the same rules as individual donations to the particular candidate (the pool the money is drawn from cannot have any individual donations that exceed $1,250). Also the candidate would only be able to contribute a maximum of $50,000 dollars to the campaign from personal assets;

6) Federal Election Commission (FEC) reform to ensure a non-partisan board of referees that can effectively administrate, regulate and enforce adherence to the rules of this program through disclosure and penalties;

7) Create an effective and reliable funding stream through legislation that guarantees solvency and sufficiently fast delivery of the funds;

One design of this idea is to increase the impact of small contributions in effort to make their significance more relevant in a large donor environment. This new significance will increase the incentive for individuals that are only able to give small amounts to donate with less of a mindset that such a donation is meaningless. This theoretical advantage has been demonstrated somewhat empirically by a similar program in New York City where in 2009 city electoral candidates participating in the program raised approximately 63 percent of their donated funds from individuals that contributed less than $250 and most contributors in the 2009 elections were first-time donors where more than 80 percent gave $175 or less.2,3 Unfortunately the overall influence of this effect is difficult to determine statistically because of various other controlling factors and a small sample size from which to draw from over the last decade.

Another theoretical advantage to this small donor enhancement is that due to the volume requirements and advantages, candidates would be more likely to engage with numerous potential voters in their district/state instead of simply ‘wine-and-dine’ a small number of large contributors. There is some anecdotal evidence to support this idea in that some New York City candidates stated that the multiplier New York pays out for small contributors gives them an incentive to actually pay attention to their constituents over simply focusing their attention on wealthy donors through fundraisers, which may attract more diverse individuals to not only donate money, but participate in the political process.2 However, the significance of these interactions is still in question. For example a candidate can just continue to send fundraising emails requesting campaign donations and highlighting the benefits of donating $250 or less. How many people made small value donations to the Obama campaign in 2008 without actually ever going to a face-to-face town hall Q&A hosted by Obama, webchat or some other interactive event? How does this strategy change in a multiplier environment?

The authors of this proposal fail to mention the full public finance systems with much larger track records in Maine and Arizona (Clean Election Systems).1 While the design of the public financing was different, candidates would forgo the ability to privately raise funds to receive a set amount of matching funds relative to what was raised by their opponent plus an additional flat sum, the lessons learned do hold some merit. The design of this system was to increase electoral competition, increase voter choice, attempt to limit increasing campaign costs, reduce interest group influence and increase voter participation.

Unfortunately the public financing systems in both Arizona and Maine did not successfully achieve any of these goals as judged by the Government Accounting Office (GAO).4 Of the five goals the only noticeable change occurred in electoral competition, but that change was not deemed large enough to be statistically significant due to other factors. Insiders also reported that the political parties gamed the system in multiple ways. Fortunately due to the differences in the multiplier system and the matching system (used in Arizona and Maine), it is unlikely that similar gaming strategies can be used in the multiplier system. However, another problem is that the public did not know about this gaming and yet the percentages of races with viable third-party/independent candidates did not increase over time, voting-age citizens did not view public funding as an effective counter to special interest group influence and voting-age citizens did not demonstrate an increase in confidence in government.

Proposal proponents would argue that the ‘Clean Election’ system failed to live up to its hope largely because of the cap placed on the participating candidates. These caps allowed non-participants the ability to outspend their participating opponents. The addition of matching funds, designed to augment any significant imbalance in funding were added later through monetary triggers and alleviated the limitations of the initial flat sum cap, but this trigger-based matching fund structure was later judged unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett. Based on the long-term outcomes of Arizona and Maine it can be said that the goals of the Brennan Center-Democracy 21 proposal are not easily captured.

Overall there appear to be a number of concerns with the proposal. One immediate concern is the government caps at $2 million and $10 million for House and Senate candidates respectively. While having caps is theoretically appropriate because there must be some limit lest overall government costs for the program could result in unsustainable values, these caps may be inappropriate in efficiency relative to the multiplier. It only takes 1,600 individuals donating the maximum matching value of $250 to reach the House cap and 8,000 individuals to reach the Senate cap multiplied by the number of districts. Unfortunately the districts multiplier is somewhat irrelevant because the proportional population district determining formula tends to lessen the significance of the cap over increasing it. With such a small number of required donors it stands to reason that a vast majority of individuals participating in the program will attain these caps.

Assume that due to gerrymandering and other unscrupulous political behavior along with an increase in political demographical homogeneity only about 130 or so House seats are actually vulnerable with about 33 Senate seats available during each election cycle. With the average House seat winner spending $1.4 million and Senate winner spending $9.8 million in 2010, it is not unreasonable to assume that at least 95% of the House and Senate candidates will enter the program and attain the cap due to the small amount of donations that are actually required. If this is the case then the federal government will be responsible for paying out an additional $1.124 billion dollars in matching funds each election cycle.

Note that this value also assumes only a single Democrat and a single Republican in a general election; no costs are included for what is matched during primaries, there is no inclusion of third party candidates or the idea that previous ‘runaway’ House races would be meaninglessly contested solely on ego because of the available funds. It is reasonable to expect these elements to drive the costs even higher to at least double the above estimate. The authors suggest an estimate of $700 million per year for this program, but that suggestion seems rather small based on the above assumptions.

Based on these cost concerns there are three questions that need to be asked: 1) how is the government going to raise the necessary amount of money? 2) Will the public view this expenditure as a valuable service to society? 3) If the caps can be attained by interacting with so few individuals (0.056% to 0.07% of state populations for almost all Senate candidates) is the system really that useful in accomplishing its ‘interaction/small donors mean something’ goal?

A previous analysis has determined that there are numerous potential strategies for raising a large amount of funds that could be designated for the presidential funding system or an enhanced public funding system like or similar to the proposed one.5 However, a problem with most of those strategies is that they are either some entirely new tax or some form of tax increase typically on businesses. Any attempt in this political environment to pass a new tax will face serious opposition. The tax credit or redirection of funds will probably be limited in usefulness because the current Presidential Matching system is struggling to maintain funding, which is drawn from simple redirection of tax revenue over actually creating more revenue, and this proposal dwarfs that matching system in expected required funds. Also with revenues lower than proportional historical averages, partially due to the Bush tax cuts, it is difficult to view the utility of revenue redirection.

One suggestion that should garner significant support is increasing fines for speeding and other traffic violations at the state level, but it may be difficult to get the states to ‘transfer’ those funds to a federally run system when they are having such financial problems themselves and those additional funds will not amount to much (assuming about $1 million in additional revenue per state only nets $50 million).5 One possibility may be to divert funds from the widely discussed ‘stock trade’ tax to such a program. This strategy may be easier to accomplish versus some of the other suggested taxes because it is a volume based tax with a one to two cent cap per interaction, thus individuals will not view it as ‘back-breaking’ or ‘blatantly unfair’ like most other taxes. Ironically Wall Street will actually be funding a program to enhance competition in federal elections. Another possibility may be to change the system where the government multiplier is only three times instead of five times, thus candidates have to interact with more people to meet the cap, but the overall caps could also be slightly increased in value as well to compensate for the reduced multiplier. Overall whether one wants to regard it as a logistical problem or a political problem, funding this system is a significant problem.

Another concern is the floor monetary caps for participation. The idea of the floor caps is to ensure that fringe candidates do not run on a whim and waste government money. A wise idea, but it appears to be executed improperly with this absolute monetary value. It stands to reason even the most fringe House candidates could find 400 residences in a given district to donate $100 to their campaigns and reaching the Senate requirement would probably be even easier, especially in a more populous and diverse state like California. Overall it would probably be better to change the floor from a hard $40,000 to a percentage. For example 2% of the district population would need to give between $100 and $250 to a given House candidate and 2% of the state population would need to give between $100 and $250 to a given Senate candidate for qualification. If one of the goals is to ‘filter’ out non-competitive candidates then such a requirement is more than appropriate because one cannot have a reasonable expectation of winning unless at least 2% of the voting population is willing to donate at least $100 to the campaign.

Another issue to study is the concept of the ‘repayment of funds’ at the end of the election. The proposal suggests that candidates who have a surplus of funds remaining after an election would be required to return those funds to the government equal to the amount they received through the program or return the entire surplus if received funds were greater than the surplus. The candidate could then use any remaining funds in that surplus after repayment in a future election cycle. There is no information pertaining to whether or not the candidate can transfer those funds to the national party coffers or to another candidate even if he/she elects not to run in a future election cycle. It seems reasonable to suggest that if the candidate does not elect to run in a future election the remaining funds can be donated.

The concern with this system is the point of running in an election is to win and if funds have to be repaid if they exist afterwards it stands to reason that very few candidates will retain any funds instead using that money to purchase last second advertisement on television, radio, Internet and in print publications, unless the race is a runaway. Unfortunately most of the races that are runaways are generally predicted as such long before the election date, thus most runaway winners will not participate in this system and their opponents will spend all their raised money if done so under the system. Overall this issue really is not a problem, but one should not expect much of a return of distributed funds, thus when estimating costs a return rate of less than 1% would be appropriate.

The final major issue is the argument the authors make in reference to donating money leading to an increase in political participation. Basically encouraging participation by small donors will not only increase the probability of neutralizing large donor contributions, but will also increase the probability that these individuals volunteer for given candidates increasing the level of social and political capital between candidates and their constituents, especially on a diversity level. While true, such a desire needs to be tempered with caution. Realistically this increased participation is only genuinely valuable if it leads a person who would not have otherwise voted to vote and if that individual votes he or she does so as an informed voter. If the individual is not an informed voter then it is better they don’t vote. Even if they do vote there is still two lingering problems.

First, the overall idea of the Brennan Center-Democracy 21 proposal is the neutralization of special interest money by countering it with volume funds from numerous small value donors. A problem is that this system has no ‘mind’. The authors oppose the money in the system now because most of it is attached to special interests, which they believe corrupt the system, a rational belief. However, their system does not really address that influence, it only adds more money to the pool. There is no focused mind to this issue because special interests have a single principal issue to promote, all of these multiple donations have numerous voices on given issues, which can drowned each other out.

Some could argue that these donation groups have similar viewpoints, but unless they formalize themselves, they don’t. Numerous people identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans, but they have different views on various subjects despite this party affiliation. This lack of focus is a significant hindrance to this strategy because candidates can still do what the special interests want within their platform because the money from the small donors lacks that potentially counteracting ability due to a lack of clear focus.

The second problem is that while the idea is that augmented small donor money will increase voter excitement because of the greater role any single individual can play, how will this excitement be maintained if nothing changes? One of the biggest problems with this system, and modern politics in general, is that it does not effectively address the issue of the ‘forsaken voter’. One of the complaints of blacks and environmentalists is that the Democratic Party does not respect their opinions because the Democratic leadership believes that these groups have nowhere else to go if they want to exercise their right to vote; they can’t vote for a Republican because that would be self-defeating, if they are real Democrats, and they can’t vote for a Green party member or other third party member because of the infinitesimal probability that the person would actually win.

There is little reason to believe that this proposal will change the probability that a third party candidate is elected because of the ‘wasted vote’ philosophy that burdens third party alternatives along with party loyalties. Adding a medium amount of additional money to the coffers of an alternative party candidate will do little because these parties are already established, thus a lack of publicity is not a crippling problem restricting their ability to get party members elected. Unfortunately without creating another alternative third option for disheartened Republican and Democrat voters their elected officials can continue to ignore their desires and continue to pander to special interests.

With the idea of removing dependence on large donors by augmenting small donors giving an elected candidate the financial firepower to win elections without feeling beholden to anyone, there is an important philosophical point to this issue in that the authors seem to have one of two beliefs. First, that at their core most politicians are moral individuals that are ‘corrupted’ by the rich and other large value donors. Increasing the ability of small donors to fund their campaigns removes them from this corrupting influence. However, this philosophy seems flawed because these individuals feel beholden to these large corporations in the first place. If these individuals were moral they would ‘fight’ for their personal beliefs even if they conflicted with the beliefs of the high value donors. If these actions matched with the beliefs of the electorate then they would be re-elected because the opponents, no matter how much advertising they could buy could not sell a story that would convince the electorate not to vote for this first individual. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case for a number of politicians.

Second, that there are moral candidates that simply cannot get elected because immoral incumbents use money to saturate the electorate and preserve their election; unfortunately the monetary issue is not the central problem in such a situation; if the challenger is from one of the two major parties (Dem or Rep) then money is not an issue and if it is an independent/third party candidate then voter psychology is far more damaging than lack of money. Therefore, within this philosophy money does not appear to be the principal problem, but similar to the forsaken voter issue, the problem is getting voters to dictate candidate characteristics not the other way around if money is acting as a corrupting influence in that particular region.

The side issue is the matter of voter disapproval of Congress. Most people do not genuinely disapprove of Congress because of the influx of money and the perception of bribery. The disapproval of Congress comes from conflict and intractability; basically Congress is viewed negatively because they are viewed as not doing anything due to in-fighting. Ironically voters want their elected officials to do something, even if it is the wrong thing, more than for them to do nothing. If Congress were doing something, regardless of what that something was, then it would have a significantly higher approval rating.

Overall money is clearly a negative influence in politics and while the attempt to expand the New York City multiplier program to a federal level is admirable there are some important questions that the initial proposal left unanswered. The issue of both the total general cost of the system and how this money will be collected are still unknown and what is estimated does not instill much confidence that it will be affordable relative to what will be delivered. Also the minimum floor to qualify for the system appears better suited as a percentage of the population over a fixed donor number and value in order to more effectively eliminate candidates that have no genuine opportunity for victory and would otherwise waste federal multiplier funds. However, the biggest problem for this program is the lack of viable victory choices (i.e. forsaken voter) and the lack of focus. Unless these two problems are addressed either directly or indirectly there appears very little probability that this program will create significant change in the political system.

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Citations:

1. Skaggs, A, and Wertheimer, F. “Empowering Small Donors in Federal Elections.” Brennan Center for Justice and Democracy 21. 2012.

2. Genn, E, et Al. “Donor Diversity Through Public Matching Funds.” Brennan Center for Justice and Democracy 21. 2012.

3. Malbin, M, Brusoe, P, and Glavin, B. “Small Donors, Big Democracy: New York City’s Matching Funds as a Model for the Nation and States.” Election Law Journal. 2012. 11(1):3-20.

4. Campaign Finance Reform: Experiences of Two States That Offered Full Public Funding for Political Candidates. Government Accountability Office. May 2010. GAO-10-390.

5. Public Financing of Elections: Where to Get the Money. Center for Governmental Studies. 2003. http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/232.pdf

Revisiting Campaign Finance Reform

The original question in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission revolved around whether or not the FEC could use the McCain-Feingold Act (a.k.a. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) to prevent groups from distributing political advertisements within 30 or 60 days from a specific type of election. However, while this narrow element was the original nature of the case, the majority in the case expanded the breadth of the ruling to justify whether or not money expenditure in an election could be considered an extension of free speech and if corporations could use it for the direct purpose of supporting the election or defeat of a given candidate.

The somewhat sad reasoning in Citizens is that Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion seems to suggest that there is no way to distinguish between media (who was not restricted the McCain-Feingold Act) and other non-media corporation, even though governments and its agencies had been doing just that for years leading up to this case. The real question stemming from Citizens is what is the obligation of the United States to the Constitution when the consequences to possibility not upholding an aspect of it could be disastrous?

One of the chief problems with Citizens is the rationality that money is a form of speech and the First Amendment should protect its use. The underlying problem in the application of such a belief is that there is no inherent limit to the distribution of money. In this regard society tiers the importance of an individual’s speech by how much money he/she has. This scenario creates an unequal weight on speech that is not inherent to the accuracy of the speech. The point of the First Amendment was to ensure all speech because all speech was viewed as equal based on the premise of equal weight within reason. The tiered environment created by money destroys the assumed ‘equal weight’ environment, which ‘housed’ the First Amendment. The court in First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti did not properly appreciate this understanding.

Now one could argue that the ‘influence’ of newspapers and other print media, which received an exception before Citizens, also destroyed this environment. Such an argument is not correct. Newspapers offered the option of readers commenting on inaccuracies or perceived impartialities through the ‘letters to the editor’ section reducing the argument weight relative to the opinion produced by the paper. This option is not available for print insert, television or radio advertisements, the principle mediums of action by those who ‘demonstrate their speech’ with money.

Based on the entry costs associated with these mediums there is little to no opportunity for the average citizen to counter inaccurate information given by these ‘speechmakers’. In addition these ‘speechmakers’ can repetitively engage in this speech tapping into a very large audience. This lack of correction as a means to control weight is important because most of these advertisements are ripe with inaccurate and/or misleading information because to those producing them the point is not to win an election fairly, honestly and/or morally, the point is to win by any means necessary.

Another problem is that individuals and media outlets have an inherent ceiling to the influence they can exhibit in a political environment. Basically the maximum weight of their argument is reasonably capped. Individuals engage in direct speech (i.e. soapbox) are clearly limited by time and resources so their message(s) rarely carry lasting influence. Newspapers only produce one paper per day, which heavily restricts the content that it can devote to attacking/praising a given candidate(s) or the total influence it has as numerous papers would have to devote large percentages of space to a given candidate to generate lasting influence.

Television stations have a greater theoretical ceiling having the ability to disseminate content all 24 hours in a day, but face a ‘feasibility’ ceiling in that devoting too much aired content to attacking/praising a given candidate(s) will drive away undecided and ‘independent’ viewers allowing the station in question to only retain individuals devoted to loving/hating that given candidate/policy in a pre-conceived way. The tiered structure of ‘money speech’ has a much larger ceiling as advertisements of support/ridicule can appear in many different mediums generating huge levels of exposure (dwarfing those of newspapers and single television stations) with a much lower probability of turning off individuals who the advertisements are meant to influence.

Therefore, these advantages make ‘money speech’ much more valuable than ‘conventional speech’ and the more money one has the more ‘money speech’ one can make. Some try to make the argument that many people can ‘pool’ their money into collective organizations which would represent their interests with more ‘money speech’ than these individuals could muster on their own. Unfortunately due to the incredible imbalance in the current economic system the only organizations of this nature that could compete with corporate interests acting as a potential counterbalance are worker unions.

However, individuals who oppose the existence of these unions, because they do not agree with their political positions, are continuously attacking these institutions in various states in effort to destroy them. The systematic attempt to eliminate these established ‘common man’ money pools and the inability of other pools to generate equalizing amounts of money to compete with corporate interests heavily damages the validity of the pooled money argument. It is reasonable to suggest that the largest corporations will always have dramatically more ‘money speech’ than common citizens or smaller companies.

Those who argue that the point of Citizens was to liberate the ‘money speech’ for small businesses are either naïve or purposely misleading their audience. Available ‘money speech’ for small businesses only matters if that business agrees with the position of a larger business and if this is the case then there is little point for the small business to contribute because of vast percentage of the ‘speech’ on that given topic will be made by the larger business because it has more to gain or lose from influencing policy. If the smaller business disagrees with the larger business in a matter of policy there is no reasonable expectation that the smaller business will be able to utilize the ‘advantage’ of its ‘money speech’ to defeat the opinion of the larger business. In fact lack of viable restrictions on ‘money speech’ actually weakens the power of the speech for the small business relative to large business regardless of which business is actually right.

Interestingly the characterization of money as speech changes an intangible element to a tangible one, which actually strengthens the argument for regulating this type of speech. The original point of Citizens (from the petitioner’s viewpoint) argument was that it was not fair that their organization was restricted from releasing a political advertisement based on a specific time deadline, a deadline which did not apply to media organizations. The argument was that this deadline was a complete restriction of their organization’s ‘speech’. One could see the potential validity of their argument in that their ‘speech’ was being restricted in its entirety by the deadline. However, while the First Amendment disallows a government entity (federal, state or local) the ability to restrict an individual from speaking at all (outside of very specific situations), it does not restrict that same government entity from applying restrictions to certain types of speech.

A similar vein can be seen within the Second Amendment in that even if one argues that the rights of private citizens not in a government sponsored militia to bear arms are supported by the Second Amendment, an argument that is nearly impossible to make logically, government can still restrict the types of arms one can own legally. For example just because the Second Amendment states one can bear arms does not mean that the government has to allow an individual the right to own a nuclear bomb. Thus the right to bear arms is not universally protected in all forms. The same logic can be applied to the First Amendment in the form of ‘money speech’. Based on that precedent the government could place a ceiling on how much money a ‘person’ could spend in a given election cycle (just not donate to a given candidate, but actually spend be it independently or through some subsidiary).

One could argue that such ceilings were addressed in Buckley v. Valeo, but the reasoning in Buckley is incredibly naïve when addressing the ceilings relative to the improbability of corruption: “[the] absence of pre-arrangement and coordination…alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate.” Perhaps one could hold on to such illusions in 1976 when the Buckley ruling was made, but with changes in technology as well as existing anecdotal evidence over the last 30 years it is extremely difficult to view such a reasoning as valid in 2009 (when Citizens was ruled) or 2011.

Another interesting association between the First Amendment and money can also generate allowable government restriction. The spirit of the First Amendment was designed to protect differing opinions, but not opinions that were deterministically false, there is a reason libel and slander laws exist. Normally deterministically false statements are of little consequence because of the small scale in which they occur; however, within each election cycle based on what is at stake due to how the decisions legislators make influence the well-being of the general public the importance of deterministically false speech in the election environment, regardless of intent, is significantly magnified. Therefore, it should be the prerogative of a government agency to penalize and restrict individuals or groups making clearly false, ambiguous or misleading ‘money speech’ in an election environment within proper jurisdictions.

Some want to argue that these types of restrictions are not necessary largely because voters are intelligent actors and money invested in election cycles only has a muted influence on which candidate a voter votes for. This reasoning seems to fall short of viability on two points. First, if such a statement were accurate then why are hundreds of millions of dollars spent in each major Federal election cycle; clearly the individuals/groups spending this money have conducted numerous studies to identify the best and most efficient means to spend the money as ‘speech’. Therefore, it is difficult to accept the reasoning that all of this money and time would be spent on an endeavor that had little to no influence.

Second, the belief that general voters intelligently analyze candidate platforms and logically determine whether those platforms are valid and will be effective at solving problems is naïve. Most voters do not either have the time, the experience or the desire to undertake such a task, especially because of the general lack of specificity offered by candidates on their platform (most simply give general stock answers to questions or flat out lie). Thus, without this in-depth analysis most voters rely on media outlets and advertisements to ‘inform’ them regarding political platforms and opinions. Overall ‘money speech’ clearly plays a significant role in politics with regards to influencing voting trends and habits and to argue otherwise is simply foolish.

When considering the manner of speech itself a distinction must be drawn regarding subjectivity. There are two types of elected official: legislative and judicial (note that this categorization is different from branches of government of which there are three). These two categories are divided by the roles they play in crafting the law. The legislative category is responsible for creating, debating and passing/failing perspective legislation (the President is also a part of this category) where the judicial category is responsible for determining whether two separate laws contradict and how to resolve that contradiction and address criminal sentencing.

Between these two categories the legislative one has a much greater level of subjectivity relative to how to solve a given problem. The purpose of passing new laws is to solve a problem in society, yet due to imperfect knowledge and boundary conditions the analysis ability to determine whether or not a given solution is successful is not purely determinate. An extremely simple example of this process is determining a solution for x + y = 7. In this situation there are numerous solutions to the problem regardless of methodology.

However, the general openness of the legislative category does not exist for the judicial category. Determining if a given piece of legislation is constitutional, in conflict with another piece of legislation or if a defendant is guilty, etc. are much more restrictive due to existing logic and boundary conditions. For example for this category instead of x + y = 7 the problem is x + y = 7 where x > 3 and y is positive. Basically the level of subjectivity is much smaller and there are fewer viable possibilities for x and y.

The general point of speech in the election of an individual who will take a legislative role, regardless of type, is to demonstrate support for a particular idea or group of ideas that embodies the candidate. It can be argued that another rationality is to exhibit support for certain personal characteristics of the candidate, which could allow him/her to better work with other legislators to come to a deal. This situation is different for a judicial election because the limited options eliminate the second rationality for speech support. Judges do not negotiate with other judges in a quid-pro-quo manner similar to politicians. The first opinion is also significantly hindered by the limited number of correct options due to sentencing guidelines, logic and legal precedent. Therefore, speech in support or opposition against judicial candidates can only effectively be given as a measure of how effective a judge is at upholding the law on an analytical basis.

Unfortunately most of the ‘money speech’ in judicial elections is based around fear and bias largely driven by an attempt to seat like-minded individuals regardless of whether or not the legal opinions of the candidate in question are correct. This lack of respect for the legal system is troubling and actually could allow for the restriction of support/detraction speech in judicial elections due to Brandenburg v. Ohio.

Brandenburg v. Ohio largely addressed the issue of ‘clear and present danger’ exception to the First Amendment, which was first validated in Schenck v. United States. Originally the ‘clear and present danger’ exception was clarified under the ‘bad tendency’ test in Whitney v. California where if the speech has a tendency to cause sedition or lawlessness it could be constitutionally prohibited. However, Brandenburg created a new standard for the exception through a three-pronged test, which limited its application restricting government ability to restrict speech. The three elements that make up the test are intent, imminence and likelihood. When individuals devote ‘money speech’ to the defeat of a sitting judge who has not demonstrate malfeasance it can be argued that such ‘speech’ is meets the three elements of the Brandenburg test.

Arguing that a judge that has a reputation for ruling correctly legally and logically should be replaced in an election demonstrates intent in that supporters of the challenger believe that the challenger will rule differently than the sitting judge. However, if the sitting judge has ruled correctly then these supporters are supporting a candidate who will rule incorrectly, a candidate that intends to break the law by improperly evaluating it. Likelihood occurs because judges do not summarily rule on the constitutionality of an issue randomly and spontaneously, typically a petitioner must bring a suit, which challenges the standing of a given law. Therefore, if an individual is bringing a suit and is successful it stands to reason that the likelihood of that individual acting upon that new ruling is very high.

The only questionable element is imminence, but similar to likelihood it stands to reason that if an individual is bringing a suit against a particular law that if it is overturned that petitioner will act upon the law as soon as possible (a near immediate effect). Therefore, it appears possible that the government would be authorized to disallow ‘money speech’ in an election against a standing incumbent judge who has not demonstrated malfeasance.

Note that ‘money speech’ would be targeted in the above example over general speech because of the breadth of contact. The ‘danger’ in a judicial election is an individual taking the bench who will make judgments that are incorrect solely due to personal or professional motivations. Only ‘money speech’ has the ability to influence enough people to elect the judicial candidate who will be inappropriate for the job. There is little reason to suspect that general speech will be able to create a sufficient level of influence. Also note that the ability of the government to restrict ‘money speech’ only applies to judicial elections with an incumbent as there is not existing record to judge for two competing non-incumbents.

One exception that could be discussed regarding an incumbent re-election is past action within the sentencing range. While the judicial rulings on guilt and constitutionality are rather firm, the most subjective aspect of a judge’s role is sentencing. Some individuals may disagree with a judge who assigns penalties on the higher edge of the guidelines (5 years instead of 3 years for a 3-5 guideline crime) or visa-versa. In these situations if ‘money speech’ can demonstrate specific instances of such behavior through explicit citations then it would be difficult to eliminate ‘money speech’ made in opposition of that premise on the basis of the Brandenburg test.

One may try to argue that ‘money speech’ should never be restricted in elections based on the sole element of personal opinion regarding likeability. Basically ‘money speech’ could be used simply to exclaim to the public that candidate A is a ‘good guy’ and individual or organization A likes him. The problem with this mindset is that it is very unlikely that an individual or organization would spend thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in ‘money speech’ driven only by a personal like for the given candidate, there will be an ulterior motive.

Overall while the rationality in that completely restricting the ability of an individual or organization to participate in the political process through purchasing advertisement may seem logical, the First Amendment also does not guarantee unlimited speech in an environment when all individuals do not have the same opportunity for speech. Therefore, this realization logically, and more than likely legally, gives the government the ability to place a ceiling on the total ability of individuals to ‘speak’ in these types of environments. For example the government could set a ceiling on the amount of money that a given individual or corporation could spend in an election cycle to 20,000 dollars. Also based on the general differences between those who make the law and those who enforce punishment and interpret the law monetary speech restrictions in judicial elections could be even more strict, possibly even disallowed. While some believe that the ruling in Citizens significantly curtailed the government’s ability to restrict corporate money in political activities, any interpretation that the government is unable to apply monetary caps to corporations or individuals for political activities is unethical and logically wrong.

Money in Politics – A Potential Strategy for its Removal?

It can be argued that the influx of money in politics has always been a troubling issue with regards to equality and can logically be viewed as an affront to the very nature of democracy itself. On January 21, 2010 the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling that for all intensive purposes provided a deathblow for proponents of financial reform in politics. Citizens United vs. the United States of America outlined what has become the popular refrain ‘Corporations are people’. Moving beyond the general absurdity of this contention,

Also recently eliminated was any legitimate requirement for ‘these new people’ to identify themselves when ‘exercising’ their free speech. Future Congressional prospects to alter this ‘masking’ element to the ruling seem unlikely in the near or even long-term future. However, despite how generally silly and cliché the overly optimistic statement ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ may be, in this particular situation its application may be appropriate for those supporting financial reform.

The prevailing strategy so far by the financial reform movement has been to limit the influx of funds by applying a donation ceiling in an attempt to equalize the two power channels of a capitalistic democracy. To understand the rationality behind this strategy a little background is appropriate. The trademark notion of a democracy is ‘one person one vote’ implying equal influence from all voting parties regardless of position or standing. However, the evolution of the political system in the United States has created an environment where any elected position of significant consequence demands a large amount of money to purchase advertisement and conduct other publicity activities in order to have a reasonable chance at election. This monetary demand places an additional motivational incentive on potential candidates to abide by the wishes of those that have the ability to donate large sums of money at multiple instances.

Thus, while the initial notion of democracy is technically still accurate, it is difficult to believe that individuals who donate more money to fund a particular politician’s run at office will have equal influence to those that donate no money. Therefore, this new election environment has created two tiers of influence: the equal influence provided by voting and an unequal influence where individuals of wealth have significant influence over those that do not have wealth.

Unfortunately due to the flaws in the voting process of an indirect democracy (few/no termination clauses, few abilities to recall, no dishonesty termination, etc.) and the general lack of attentiveness of most voters, in real applied terms the equal influence element is seriously lacking in overall effectiveness relative to the unequal influence element. Due to this inequality some have proposed and even seen the successful passage of legislation to control the influence of money. Sadly as witnessed in Citizens United it is difficult to expect these money ceilings to remain for long periods of time because they do not serve the interests of those in power.

Some would make the argument that the failure of the voting process to neutralize this monetary influence conduit is the fault of citizens and those making large contributions to political parties or individuals should not be punished for this failure. This reasoning is flawed on two different fronts. First, the lack of and limitation of honesty in the political process significantly hinders the total expression of voting power. For example a politician can make statement A to the public, but actually support an opposing position and as long as the public is not able to discover that opposing belief the politician can be elected on a basis of false pretenses. This reality is especially relevant when the position of a corporation and large political donor may be in direct contrast with the position of the general public. How can voting have any real power when a politician can simply lie about his/her position until elected?

The counterargument to the above premise is a rather weak one. The only real logical argument is that in the case of a fraudulent politician, the public needs to take the philosophy of ‘fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me’ and when the politician comes up for re-election vote him/her out of office. The flaw in this reasoning is that any viable candidate must be available for replacement. Sadly in the current political system there will typically only be the potential for one viable opposition candidate as other candidates are pushed to the fringes of the process. Even if the lack of choice were rescinded the same initial concerns regarding truth would still be unchecked.

The second flaw in the above ‘it is the fault of voters not money’ argument is the very psychological nature of the players involved in the process. Most large donor individuals/corporations have a single principle in mind when donating money to a particular candidate: making money. There is typically no concern for any social issues or utilitarian elements that are apart from that main objective. This ‘single issue donor mentality’ gives an effective focus to the donation process eliminating the benefits of logical analysis.

However, because most voters are not rich and powerful, their lives are affected more by the myriad of decisions that a representing official has to make, thus it is illogical for these voters to be single issue voters (despite the fact that some are anyways). Therefore, it is difficult to expect voters to sacrifice all other issues to ensure that the large donors do not receive support for their single issue. This single issue element also ties to the trust issue above in that corporations have a black/white point regarding whether or not support should be given to a particular candidate while even if a candidate lies about one particular issue their overall platform may force a non-wealthy voter to continue to support them.

The principle tactic used by those fighting money in politics and other avenues is the belief in ‘sunshine’ or transparency. Proponents believe that by creating environments where individuals that donate large sums of money must make those donations in a completely transparent manner and those that use the money must outline how it was used it will lead to an outcome where more immoral actions will be restrained reducing the overall negative influence of money in politics. However, the problem with this strategy is that it does not address the saturation mindset. It stands to reason that most people believe that all candidates are taking money from some form of special interest and/or large corporate donors (even the small third party ones regardless of whether or not they actually are), so no candidate is ‘clean’. Therefore, without offering an effective way to remove money from the system, it is unlikely that this ‘transparency’ strategy will work.

Some proponents of that strategy may cry fowl at such an analysis citing that if individuals are made aware of monetary donations and expenditures then they could seek out the individuals that are receive no or less money and characterize those individuals as ‘not beholden to special interests’. The concern with this rationality is that receipt of donated money becomes a single issue. It is difficult to envision a scenario where an individual votes against a candidate that shares his/her viewpoint on a wide variety of issues if it is revealed that the candidate has taken a lot of money from special interest groups.

Therefore, ‘taking money from special interest groups’ will be regarded as just one of many issues that is considered by a voter when deciding on which candidate to vote for. Unfortunately due to the fact that messaging and access is heavily influenced by money it seems very probable that very few candidates will refrain from taking special interest money when available to them, regardless of any transparency requirements. If this scenario comes to pass then with every viable candidate feeling it necessary to take money, the previous public psychological assertion become true: everyone is taking money, everyone is dirty, thus it does not matter who takes money.

This above rationality may explain why various polling identifies 70% - 85% of people, regardless of political affiliation, believing special interest money is a big problem, but very few of these individuals do anything significant to address the issue. This unwillingness to act in mass also severely reduces any real possibility of forming a group to combat special interest money with ‘public non-government derived’ money because special interest groups will almost always have more to devote to a given political race. Remember special interest groups view giving money to a given political candidate as an investment, its sole goal is to create further wealth.

The reality of the situation is that it will be almost impossible to expel money from the political system and fighting money with money also does not appear to be a valid option. Returning to the ‘silver lining’ of Citizens United, currently the ruling hammered the last nail in any feasible reality where money could be significantly limited or even removed from politics, thus instead of chasing the highly unlikely scenario of, ‘money out of politics’, individuals can now address new more viable strategies to limit the influence of money. Realistically based on the present conditions the best strategy is to make money irrelevant. Making money irrelevant involves making voters care about what the candidate stands for beyond their party affiliation.

One important element in combating money is to understand that its primary purpose is to maximize information exposure. The real advantage to money is that it takes advantage of interest and time limitations possessed by the electorate. Instead of depending on a potential voter taking the initiative to look up a particular issue on a given candidate, money allows the candidate and his/her supporters to present that information directly to the voter. Unfortunately this presentation is frequently carried out in such a way that the core message is prone to misinterpretations or even outright lies that favor a particular candidate.

Clearly there are issues that voters care about that move beyond party affiliation. The means to break through voter apathy demands tapping into issues which voters care about and using those issues to defeat any influence of money. No matter how much money a candidate spends it is very difficult to expect a voter to vote in favor of a candidate that has opposing positions on a variety of relevant issues. The sticking point in such an information strategy is the fact that different people view different issues as important therefore it would be difficult to spearhead any direct engagement of the electorate because that would take a lot of money, money that is not available to non-bias third-party organizations. Therefore, the simplicity of the information disseminated by media mediums for party sponsored material must be combated with simplicity and accuracy itself.

The lack of knowledge regarding what is important to the electorate makes everything of significance important. Therefore, all information relevant to each issue of significance for a given candidate must be collected and presented in a way that potential voters can compare that information against their opponents.

The medium for this presentation would be best on a website, but because not all individuals have access to the Internet individuals should have the ability to request information through the mail; the information available would be voting records for those that have served in State or Federal level and any public statement they have made; each piece of information placed on this website must have an associated citation confirming the authenticity of the information; the major issues will be Education, Economy, Health Care, Social Security, Foreign Affairs, etc. With all of this information available voters will be able to use a candidate’s own opinion to differentiate between candidates increasing the probability that potential voters will identify which candidate will best serve their interests.

While the compilation of this information in one single place is important it is equally important to design a simple user interface that will make accessing this information very easy so that individuals are encouraged to use the site and access the information. Accessing this information is largely dependent on the simplicity of the interface. One example is as followed:

The home page should consist of a large map of the United States with a mission statement and instructions below the map and finally a search box in the upper right corner. The instructions would simply direct users to click on a state of interest to begin while the mission statement would inform the user that the goal of the site is to provide non-bias non-partisan information regarding public officials in effort to identify their current and future voting stances. The search box is specifically designed to search politician names to speed searching if only a specific individual is of interest.

Clicking on a state will bring up a list of districts within that state. Each district is flanked by all villages, towns and cities that fall within the boarders of the particular district so users do not have to look up which district they are a part of if they do not know. Clicking on a district will bring up a list of all elected government positions within that district, the individual currently holding that position and, when the timing is appropriate, candidates that are running for those positions. Incumbencies or political affiliations are not listed. Clicking on a name will bring up a list of the major issues mentioned above and clicking on one of those issues will bring up a list of sub-section issues that make up that major issue. Clicking on a sub-section issue will open the final list of statements and votes, if any, made by that politician relative to that sub-section issue. All statements will be organized in their entirety with an associated and accurate question (if applicable), which triggered the statement. Citations will be given as either cited references if the content is not available online or hotlinks if it is.

For this site to reach its full potential all news media organizations must agree not to lock any of the citation links behind any form of pay-wall. Also it is important the information is topic sorted, but remains individual centric. The ability to directly compare multiple candidates on the basis of a single political position could foster the development of more single-issue voters. Creating more single-issue voters would be counterproductive because the emphasis on that single issue tends to eliminate consideration of any other issue when voting which will more than likely produce results that will overall be detrimental to society when electing officials. If individuals wish to do the work comparing a single issue among candidates so be it, but by focusing on individual centricity it will at least expose those voters to other political issues and force the voter to do legitimate work to be a single issue voter.

Overall it is important to understand that money in politics from a candidate’s perspective is all about information distribution. Therefore, money can be countered by opposing information regardless of whether or not it is derived from money. Recalling the advantages money provides, the structure of society itself provides an obstacle to its efficiency. Due to the costs associated with information distribution through wide-reaching media, the popular choice with money because of its targeting effects, issues must be addressed with broad strokes. This generality can be countered with specificity and accuracy hence the goal of the above idea. However, even if such a website is created publicity is an important final element. If individuals do not know the site exists then its existence is meaningless. Thus if such a site is ever created, a significant publicity push would be required to introduce the site.

A Qualitative Analysis about Depression - Part 1

Currently anti-depressant medication is the most prescribed class of drug being taken by the American public outpacing drugs for heart conditions, cholesterol and even high blood pressure. The pertinent question then is what are people so depressed about, what in their lives is so bad that they have to take drugs to neutralize their ill feelings? Overall depression can arise from one of two causes, psychological or physiological, so the first order of business in this situation is to categorize the origin of the depression from these two avenues. Physiological mechanisms for depression will be discussed at a future time. This post will address psychological depression.

An initial mindset towards psychological depression is that it is self-induced. Such a statement makes rational sense because psychological depression occurs in those of sound mind, otherwise the depression is physiological (there is some form of abnormal brain function that induces depression). Therefore, regardless of whether or not the depression stems from general feelings or a particular event, it is in the control of the individual to neutralize any psychological depression. One of the big presumptions that foster depression is the present existence of obstacles that prevent individuals from undertaking tasks that promote happiness. Although at first glance such a statement seems to make perfect sense, many studies have been conducted which conclude that after a certain threshold point of annual earnings, usually $40,000 – $50,000, money no longer promotes happiness. Basically, more money does not increase happiness.

The interesting question is why exactly does money not seem to augment happiness to a more reasonable threshold of $500,000+? First things first, assume that these studies were not flawed in a way that eliminates their validity. An individual with greater financial resources can participate in a wider variety of opportunities allowing this individual a higher probability to engage in experiences that are fulfilling or rewarding. Basically, the individual has more choice. It seems rational to suggest that participation in fulfilling or rewarding experiences should increase the level of short-term happiness and possibly long-term happiness of an individual. So if more money increases the number of fulfilling or rewarding experiences one can undertake, why do studies contradict this basic reasonable conclusion?

One issue is the paralyzing nature of choice. When options are manageable, for instance 6 different types of computers, have the power of choice derived from wealth is a blessing. However, when possible options increase substantially, instead of 6 what if there were 34 different types of computers, then experts believe choice becomes a burden. One recalls the famous example of the donkey. A donkey is equal distance between two identical bales of hay. Without any distinguishing characteristics to dictate the decision making process, the donkey is unable to decide which bale to eat from and dies of starvation.

The sad fact of the matter is that the paralysis is silly. There is no difference between the bales, thus it does not matter which bale the donkey selects. The same goes for those with money. Money is a fantastic safety net in that even if an individual chooses poorly amongst all of the available options, that poor choice is better nullified by the remaining excess wealth that the individual possesses. So what if the millionaire purchases the wrong type of car, the purchase can simply be recorded as a failure, identify why and a new purchase of another car can be made that better fits the individual’s desires. Thus the problem is not money, but how people interact and view money.

Others would argue that the more financial resources an individual has the greater number of problems that person could come to experience as well. However, such a conclusion does not seem to hold water in that if an individual finds him/herself with more problems solely due to having more money it is the fault of that individual. For example there is no rule that an individual has to demonstrate a certain level of wealth through the purchase of a specific number of tangible elements or that character or personality automatically changes corresponding to a specific amount of wealth. In addition a person does not lose the ability to think rationally or decline certain opportunities after a certain level of financial worth is attained.

Realistically the only thing that really changes for certain in an individual's life with the acquisition of greater financial resources is the number of available opportunities and the level of personal freedom for that individual. That said, there is one problem that can be directly attributed to having excess capital, the appearance of individuals who intend to swindle or beg for money. However, despite this problem for the most part problems with ‘too much money’ arise from the fact that people make bad decisions with money. Whether or not bad decision-making should be considered when relating available capital to happiness is a question for the psychological experts, but how can money, an inanimate object with no ability to reason, be blamed for poor decisions. The fact is that even those bad decisions are muted in their severity for those with money as described above.

A possible counter-argument to the above analysis is that certain problems do not exist for an individual until reaching a certain minimum level of wealth. Some may relate such a statement to living longer because although in theory living longer is great, the longer one lives the greater the probability that certain degenerative neurological conditions arise, problems that tend not to exist for those of a younger age. These problems strip value from those additional years in that although living is better than not living, the additional years are not as joyful or productive as past years. However, such a comparison only works if one allows money to control one’s life. For example one does not need to change personality or behavior when acquiring greater wealth. An individual's personality and decision-making are the controllable and primary elements that determine the types of problems that arise due to the new found wealth unlike the currently uncontrollable degradation of telomeres and free-radical production which largely influence aging and the corresponding neurological conditions.

Now it is true that the probability that unscrupulous individuals seeking to acquire wealth through deceit or intimidation targeting a particular individual will increase with increasing financial wealth. Unfortunately such things may occur even if the individual does not change his/her behavior, but these events are unlikely and there are steps to protect from and remedy these situations. For instance if one does not flaunt wealth then the probability that these unscrupulous individuals will accost that individual will be quite low. In addition, there are legal steps that can be taken to eliminate these individuals from continuing their actions. If one desires the simplicity of life before an excess amount of money there are steps that can be taken to solve this problem as well such as donating money to a worthy charity or giving some money to close hard-working friends and associates of less financial means. Overall with all other elements remaining equal, if an individual is not being harassed or stalked then the total happiness of that individual should increase with increasing available wealth over a much higher rate than simply 40,000 dollars.

If there is a group that has reason to be depressed it is those that are impoverished. Such a lack of basic funds severely restricts the ability to overcome certain obstacles blocking positive experiences. It is these groups that better appreciate the obstacles that wealth can breakdown. Perhaps the upper-middle class and rich can learn a thing or two from that mindset. What can be done about improving happiness for these individuals? The best way is to ensure that they have a level of hope that things can get better. Basically ensure a path exists for these individuals that can be followed which will improve their lives.

Although the specifics of the biological/physiological will be left for another time, it must be mentioned that the problem of depression cannot be solely limited to a biological problem in that if certain genes facilitate depression a person with those expression patters is doomed to depression. As conscious beings with the ability to make choices in our lives, genes can only predispose certain types of action or behavior, but they cannot force action; it is the individual that consciously commits a given action. For instance an individual's genetic structure may predispose that individual to becoming an alcoholic, but it does not drive an individual to consume those first initial alcoholic beverages that could trigger alcoholism. Therefore, in addition to treating the symptoms of depression with pharmaceuticals, not surprisingly it would also be wise for an individual to place him/herself in situations that are not depressing.

Another significant driving force behind depression may be the human sense of the void and the expansiveness of time and the universe itself. At a conscious or subconscious level an individual may embrace an existentialist philosophy where nothing that is accomplished has any lasting meaning in the context of the universe or time itself because the accomplishment is small and finite. This philosophy strips joy from any type of accomplishment because if time is going to eventually destroy the accomplishment and all that benefit or remember it, why accomplish anything that is not essential to survival? Interestingly enough this existentialist philosophy realistically only affects those without real talent to accomplish anything (defense mechanism for inadequacy) or those who do not care about their place in society. Those that find their identity through comparison against others look to accomplish as much as possible to bolster their self-worth, so the ephemeral nature of accomplishment is lost on those people, ironically this may be the only positive attribute of such a shallow mindset.

Although it is true that time acts as the greater eraser the purpose of accomplishment is to provide meaning in the short-term, not the long-term. A simpler way for those with these existentialist beliefs to think about accomplishment is to return to a simple cost-benefit analysis asking the question: is the short-term gain for the individual and society worth the investment? Therefore, although the accomplishment may not last forever it still has meaning and is worth the time the individual puts into it.

In the end non-physiological depression is largely self-induced because individuals do not know how to or choose to not be depressed. Regardless of what empirical studies may report, the inability of money to directly augment happiness past a certain threshold value can largely be attributed to inefficient use and handling of said money by the individual, instead of the money itself. Overall every individual of sound mind has a state of contentment, if not happiness, that is achievable without significant access to resources. Although it can be interpreted that the last sentence was pulled from a kooky self-help book, it really is true that there are scenarios where an individual can find happiness regardless of their current environment. The appropriate strategy seems rather cliché, but individuals should aim to put themselves in good situations as much as possible without detriment to others and learn as much as possible from bad situations in order to avoid future bad situations and terminate current ones as fast as possible.