Look Who’s Not Going To Washington

NJPIRG has been working with the Alliance for Clean Elections to create publicly financed elections in New Jersey. Our latest report emphasizes why reform is so necessary nationwide by looking at New Jersey and national races.

The report, “The Wealth Primary” documents how crucial big money is to winning, and more ominously, how the current campaign finance system allows a tiny minority of wealthy Americans to shape the democratic process.

That money drives politics is a truism few would question. Using Federal Elections Commission data from primaries from across the country, we determined just how powerful money’s impact is.

We found that 92 percent of major party primaries are won by the candidates with the most cash (typically the incumbent). When there was no incumbent, the candidate with the most money won 82 percent of the time. The winning candidate, on average, outspent competitors 3.5-to-1, raising $1.07 million to the loser’s $304,000.

The average incumbent Senator entered 2005 with $1.43 million already on hand. Almost certainly as a result of these war chests and the need to fundraise, few challengersentered primaries this year—only 24 percent of primaries were contested.

By advantaging incumbents and deterring challengers, our privately financed election system reinforces the political status quo. Indeed, despite all the talk of massive change in this coming election, less than 10 percent of seats were in play.

	CANDIDATES RELY ON FEW FOR FUNDING—According to Federal Election Commission data, only 0.27 percent of the voting age population made a contribution above $200. Candidates, then, relied on funding from a small percentage of wealthy individuals, rather than broad-based support.

The Elite Donors

“Our current campaign finance system doesn’t simply give control of our election choices to money,” said Abigail Field, NJPIRG’s legislative advocate. “Rather, it gives control over elections to people with money—a select, elite few.”

“The Wealth Primary” found that only 0.27 percent of voting-age Americans made a contribution to a candidate of $200 or more, and yet these large donations accounted for 82 percent of individual contributions received by primary candidates.

Within that elite group of contributors is an even more potent subset of big donors—those who could afford to give $2,000 or more. Less than 0.03 percent of Americans wrote such large checks to candidates, and yet they accounted for more than 29 percent of all individual contributions.

Without suggesting candidates engage in direct quid-pro-quo policy making with these elite donors, the successful candidates’ deep dependence on these few individuals suggests that these donors’ concerns will be the ones most forcefully heard after Election Day.

Unfortunately, as their relative uniqueness suggests, the big donors are unlikely to be representative of the people living in the districts candidates seek to represent. A study of the 1996 elections determined that large donors are not demographically representative of America; they are more often white, male and wealthy than average Americans.

This demographic disconnect suggests that the concerns most attended to by candidates in our current system may be different than the concerns of typical Americans.

Solutions Availible

Fortunately, solutions do exist. Our campaign finance system can be overhauled to enable qualified candidates, regardless of personal wealth or fundraising connections, to participate, so candidates win based on ideas and character, not bank accounts. “The Wealth Primary” offers several recommendations for reforming national campaign finance rules, including:

Provide candidates with a full public financing option. Candidates who agree to limit their campaign spending and forgo private funds, and who demonstrate sufficient support in their district by raising a threshold number of low-dollar qualifying contributions, should be given the option of accepting a public grant to fund their campaigns.

Provide free media for candidates. Free TV, radio and mail should be provided to candidates. This would dramatically decrease the cost of campaigns and would provide an opportunity for candidates to get their messages out. The American public owns our airwaves, which are supposed to be operated in the public interest, so this requirement would not impinge upon the rights of commercial broadcasters.

Provide incentives for small political contributions. Incentives for small political contributions (up to $100) such as tax credits, refund programs and vouchers, would move us toward a small donor democracy by encouraging more ordinary citizens to participate in the political process.

Lower contribution limits. Contribution limits, for all candidates, and all races should be set at a level that average Americans can afford. Given that only 0.03 percent of voting age Americans made a $2,000 contribution for the 2006 primary elections, Congress should lower contribution limits, not increase them as they did in 2002.

Limit Campaign Spending. Elections should be contests of ideas, not battles of dollars. The use of personal wealth in campaigns should be limited through spending caps so that no candidate has an unfair financial advantage. Given the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking Vermont’s spending limits, this measure will require a constitutional amendment.

In New Jersey, reform means creating a viable, effective public financing system, eliminating pay-to-play, lowering limits on contribution amounts and requiring contributions to come from in-district. Some progress has been made, but far more must be done.

A pilot project for publicly financed elections was conducted in the 2005 election cycle, involving four districts and eight Assembly seats. As a method of financing elections, the experiment failed; most candidates were unable to meet the often arbitrary requirements for public financing. As a method of figuring out how to create a viable clean elections system, the experiment was a success.

Through testimony of the participating candidates, NJPIRG, AARP, New Jersey Citizen Action and the League of Women Voters, the Clean Elections Citizen Commission proposed model legislation overhauling the pilot project, with the goal of having a new system for the 2007 elections. Unfortunately, the Legislature has yet to take up the model bill, instead preferring to continue studying the idea of publicly financed elections.

A partial pay-to-play ban has been enacted statewide, and some stronger local laws exist, though additional proposals are pending. The reforms are having an effect; the state chairman of the Democratic Party has publicly complained about the state ban and its impact on fundraising. Nonetheless, the existing reforms are just a beginning.

No reform attention seems to be on campaign contribution limits, even though individuals can give leadership PACs and county PACs (Political Action Committees) $25,000 and $37,000 each, and those PACs can turn around and make unlimited donations to candidates.

Dollar amounts that large give individual high donors influence with the Legislature’s leaders and county leaders, and in turn enable those leaders to shape who becomes a candidate, and who wins, in races across the state.

Similarly, outside of the public financing system, no effort has been made to require contributions come only from in-district.

“Clearly, New Jersey still has a long way to go,” Field concluded. “NJPIRG will continue to work to overhaul New Jersey’s campaign finance system until everyday New Jerseyans have an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy.”