I don’t know why I was thinking about this today, but I thought I’d ask you all, since I’m less likely to get weird looks and more likely to get actual answers than anywhere else.
What would or could be some unintended side effects of eliminating all private funding for election campaigns?
To clarify; for simplicity, this limitation would be for US House of Representatives, US Senate and POTUS only.
From seeking the party nomination clear through to the final vote in the actual election before taking office. Candidate Josey Electoral-Hopeful officiallly files their intent to seek office with the Federal Office of Election Campaigns and is given $X. From this money, the candidate must pay for everything from advertising to catering to salaries. No private funds allowed, not even from the candidate’s own pocket. Strict accounting and reporting back to the Election Campaigns office. No volunteers allowed, staffers treated same as volunteers (see below)
In a variation where volunteers are allowed, they must be individually registered and vetted through the Campaigns office and only a certain number from any one group or similar groups are allowed. Not sure about the mechanism for this part, haven’t really thought this bit through yet as it occurred to me as a weakness in my hypothetical as I was typing this.
First of all, it would send legislators who are currently in office back to doing their jobs full time – instead of doing 50% legislating and 50% fundraising. That’s a great thing.
It would also send Republicans (since they get far more Super PAC money) into a tizzy, as well as people who put the principle of free speech ahead of the principle of running good elections.
Free speech…yeah…that one kinda had me stumped, which is why my hypothetical isn’t worded as tightly as I had originally concieved it. My first thought was no contributions of any sort; no donated ads no volunteers, not anything. But the free speech issue got me. Maybe no big money screen or print ads, but if individuals want to put up signage in their front yard or windows…
As far as the money goes, no donations, zero, from PAC money to individual contributions. All money comes from the Campaigns Office, and each candidate gets the exact same set amount.
So I’m a Political Action Committee that lobbies now entirely without donating because of the new laws. Come a campaign cycle my group creates a scorecard of how the candidates stack up against the issues. Being careful to avoid an actual endorsement we then publicize how we rank the candidates. Since we want to maximize bang for our advertising we target areas that are both tightly contested and favor our issue. We prominently plaster that candidate Jones recieved an A+ and candidate guestchaz received a D in our ads. Maybe we throw in a big pro-cause quote from Jones and the most obnoxious anti-cause quote from you…for balance.
Did you really remove our money from the process?
There were five “major” candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2016 that appeared in a party sponsored debate. There were 11 additional candidates that appeared on multiple state ballots. An additional 21 appeared on a single state ballot. (Cite) That’s 37 that were on the ballot in at least one state. From the same wiki cite “Over a thousand people sent the requisite paperwork to the Federal Election Commission declaring themselves candidates for President.” Do we fund them all to the same levels needed to run a truly nationwide and professional campaign? If not, how do we fairly and democratically allow government discriminate against funding some candidates?
I’d also offer the case of one of those Democratic candidates from 2016 - Vermin Supreme.
That was his fourth Presidential campaign. He finished fourth in New Hampshire in 2016.
It would definitely send them back to their jobs full time—and for all time. How could a challenger get enough name recognition to overcome the power of incumbency?
Will incumbents still be permitted to go on talk news shows and attend every ribbon cutting ceremony and have their names put on public roads and buildings?
A huge rise in money going to independent groups. Unless you’re saying that it would be illegal for any outside interests to be involved in any way at all, which would be problematic as it would give politicians a legal monopoly on talking about themselves.
Right now, the constitutional law is that if I care about birds, I’m allowed to talk about how candidate X would be good or bad for birds, as much as I want so long as I don’t coordinate with the candidate. The Feds can’t come after me with a bean counter saying “ACTUALLY you have now talked too much about candidates and birds, you must shut up now, or else” as happened in the past.
Celebrities would be very successful candidates. Trump was elected despite spending less than his opponents in part because he was already well known and didn’t have to spend money on building name recognition. Also because he was famous he got tons of free media on the news. This change would definitely mean more Trump type candidates, celebrities and people who get free media by saying outrageous thing.
Good responses so far.
Yeah, the idea behind the hypothetical was trying to figure out some way to control and limit the influence of groups that have what might seem to be a more exploitative view of the populace, with little regard for the longer term beyond doing what they can to “kick the can down the road”
So far about the only real solution or conclusion I’ve come to is that there will have to be a societal/cultural change in how we view and practice our self governance. I dunno, maybe we’re living through that change right now, but the historical view of humanity’s ingenuity at being shitty in ways both subtle and unsubtle makes me doubtful.
Anyway, like I said, it was just something I was thinking about for some reason, not anything too serious behind it
