As the Congressional campaign intensifies, the news media and the
public will continue to focus on the
fundraising efforts of the candidates. The news media will pay the most
attention to the candidates who
raise the most money, as reflected in filings with the Federal Election
Commission. Those candidates
who have raised the most money will be perceived by the media as the
most viable. News coverage
focusing on these perceived frontrunners will in turn shape the views
of the public, as to which of the
candidates is viable. Under our current system, for a candidate to be
considered viable by the media
and the public, he or she must raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.
All of this is unfortunate. Candidates should be judged on their
qualifications, including education,
experience, creativity, ideas on issues and policy, and ability to
motivate voters through grassroots
organizing. Fundraising prowess has no real relationship to one's
ability to perform one's job as a
member of Congress.
The money chase in the modern political campaign reminds me of
anthropologist Ruth Benedict's
accounts, written in the 1930's, of the Kwakiutl Indians, who lived in
the Pacific Northwest. We can
learn much of a positive nature by studying the cultures of native
Americans, but the potlatch of the
Kwakiutl, in the extreme form observed by Ms Benedict, was not a
practice we should want to emulate.
At the ceremonial festival, elaborate gifts were bestowed on guests by
rival chiefs. In addition, blankets,
canoes, and other items of value were piled high by each of the rival
chiefs. The goal of this contest was
to have the highest pile, consisting of the most valuable goods. The
contest was one of psychological
warfare; the chief amassing the tallest pile was perceived to be the
most powerful. When the pile was
sufficiently large to make a suitable impression, the winning chief
would set fire to his own pile, as if to
show that his greatness surpassed even his vast material wealth.
The modern political campaign resembles the potlatch. Candidates
raise enormous amounts of
money and file their reports with the Federal Election Commission
reflecting those amounts, with the sole
aim of impressing the media and the public with the candidate's
fundraising prowess. The question of
how the money is to be spent is almost secondary, although one can be
sure that in today's expensive
media market, some of it is sure to be spent on mass mailings and
advertising on television.
A major problem with our current system of financing campaigns is
that there is a public perception,
and in some instances not just perception, but a reality, that the
officeholder's vote is for sale to the
highest bidder. It is only natural that an officeholder would at least
provide greater access to those who
have made major campaign contributions. Even a conscientious
officeholder must deal with the public
perception that his or her vote is, in effect, for sale. A public
official who has received large donations
from the health insurance industry will be reluctant to vote for
legislation supporting universal,
single-payer health care. An office holder who has received large
donations from political action
committees representing pharmaceutical companies may be expected to
oppose legislation restricting
patents on drugs. An office holder who has received large donations
from corporate polluters or real
estate developers is unlikely to vote for legislation to protect the
environment, which is opposed by those
donors. Those who have received large donations from big oil are
unlikely to vote, for example, to
protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling.
It is time for our nation to adopt true campaign finance reform--
in the form of public financing of
Congressional campaigns. Congress should pass legislation providing for
"Clean Money" elections. Under this system a candidate would raise a
specified number of very small donations, and thus qualify
for public funding at a level sufficient to finance a Congressional
campaign. States such as Maine,
Arizona, and Vermont, have enacted Clean Money legislation to provide
for this system of financing in
certain State elections. At the Federal level, U.S. Representative John
Tierney (D-Mass.) has proposed
"Clean Money" legislation, to apply to Congressional elections.
Congress should enact this legislation.
We should also have regulations requiring the media to provide
candidates with free and low-cost
advertising time. These two reforms-- public financing of campaigns,
and free and low-cost media
advertising -- will go a long way toward making the electoral process
open to qualified candidates who
are not independently wealthy or financially connected. With such
reforms, the fundraising prowess of
the candidates becomes irrelevant to the electoral process-- and that
will be good for democracy.
Editor's Note: Deborah A. Vollmer is a Democratic Candidate for
Congress (Maryland, District 8).
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