| “Special Interest” Campaign Contributions
The Deseret Morning News published an exhaustive package of stories and charts Sunday on legislative campaign contributions by “special interests.” Writers Lee Davidson and Bob Bernick went to an immense amount of work to look at the contributions in a variety of ways, producing charts that show contributions for each legislator, contributions by industry, largest donors, and so forth.
It was a nice piece of journalism that shed light on the fact that most legislative campaigns are underwritten by businesses, associations and industries that have something to gain or lose on Capitol Hill. My business, the Exoro Group, is mentioned as one of the donors.
I don’t conclude from the stories that anything nefarious is going on or that campaign contributions buy undue influence on Capitol Hill. The so-called special interest groups are made up, for the most part, of Utah citizens and business leaders who care about good government and, obviously, about their own interests. The contributors are diverse enough, from such a wide variety of industries, that no single interest dominates. Every issue has competing interests that make contributions, call and write legislators, and try to win. That’s how politics is played in this state and country.
The largest single contributor to legislators, the Utah Association of Realtors, has 10,000 members in Utah. Are these 10,000 people “special interests” or interested citizens exercising their right to engage in the political process through their trade association? As outgoing Senate President Al Mansell said in the story, everyone who gives, including individuals, has a reason for giving; everyone is a “special interest.”
Businesses and trade groups don’t give to legislators expecting to directly influence a vote. They mostly give to legislators who they know already support their position, hoping to keep them in office. Realtors didn’t give to Mansell (a Realtor), and labor unions didn’t give to Sen. Ed Mayne (a labor union leader) hoping to influence a specific vote. They gave to them because they know these legislators generally support their broad interests and they want to keep them in the Legislature.
There will always be do-gooder groups who see such contributions as evil. They propose public financing of elections or a variety of limits and restrictions. But every attempt at campaign finance reform results in other problems. The federal PAC laws and McCain-Feingold were supposed to improve things at the federal level. But now we have 527s pouring incredible amounts of money into independent expenditure efforts with little accountability.
Candidates and political parties are more accountable and responsive to citizens and voters than are independent 527 groups. The best solution at both the state and federal levels is to allow the free market to work in political campaigns, but shine the public spotlight on every contribution made. The answer is exactly what Davidson and Bernick and the Morning News did: public exposure. Require every contribution to be disclosed within 24 hours on a public Web site. Make it easy for voters to see individual and cumulative contributions. The news media and citizen outrage will provide a check on the system. Then let educated voters make up their minds about who to support.
It is unfortunate, as pointed out in the story, that more candidates don’t make an attempt to raise money from their own constituents. Candidates ought to do a mailing or two, and ask individuals in their own districts, to support their campaigns. |
