Public financing is only way to stop absurd campaign costs
Simon
Lee
Now that the elections are finally behind us, it may be a good time for us to take stock and look back at the 2010 political campaign season, particularly looking at the way that the vast majority of campaigns were financed, not only this year, but during every election cycle.
To start, it is important to take note that candidates running for Congress, even if elected, are always running for Congress. Because of the exorbitant costs to run a campaign, congresspersons spend on average 30 percent of every day while in office "dialing for dollars" in a mad rush to raise enough money for re-election.
The average cost to run a successful campaign in the House was $1.3 million. And for a Senate seat, the average cost was $7.5 million. In the last 3 election cycles prior to 2010, senatorial candidates spent a total of $1.3 billion. The total cost of all elections (local, state and federal) in 2008 was $3 billion. Once the numbers for the 2010 election come in, this figure will have undoubtedly risen yet higher.
The opportunity cost of our congresspersons spending this much time telemarketing to wealthy donors, lobbyists, special interest groups, labor unions and corporations cannot be overstated. All this time spent adding to campaign coffers takes away significantly from the work we elected our representatives to do.
At a time where we are facing such challenges as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, dwindling educational and economic competitiveness, and the management of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, our congressional representatives should and must be singularly focused on successfully tackling these serious challenges. Yet our representatives find themselves spending more and more time raising money and less time actually doing the people's work. Given all the challenges we face as a nation, the current campaign financing system is contrary to both the public and the national interest.
Fortunately, there is a way out of this dysfunctional campaign-financing quagmire. The Fair Elections Now Act currently before Congress (HR 1826), once passed, will offer a voluntary public financing option, allowing candidates to campaign without large contributions from special interest groups.
Under this system, candidates running for Congress would be free to focus on the citizens in their communities and vote purely for the public, not special, interest. Candidates, challengers and incumbents who choose to be publicly funded will no longer have to waste the people's time raising campaign dollars and spend more time listening to constituents' concerns and more time working on these concerns.
Publicly financed campaigns are nothing new in that state versions have successfully been in place for years in Connecticut, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and politically independent minded Maine since 2000, where 80 percent of elected state legislators (Republicans, Democrats and independents) are publicly financed. Moreover, the Fair Elections Now Act is not funded with taxpayer dollars and will not add to the budget deficit.
The bill is currently co-sponsored by 165 members in the House, including Central Valley Congressman Jerry McNerney, representing Stockton. The remaining five Central Valley representatives, Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced), George Radanovich (R-Mariposa), Devin Nunes (R-Visalia), Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), however, have so far been silent about the bill.
Support for the Fair Elections Now Act and publicly funded campaigns is growing fast among all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. A recent bipartisan Greenberg-McKinnon poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin (63 percent to 31 percent), Americans favor the Fair Elections Now Act, including 70 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans.
Costa and McCarthy should both do the right thing and get on board by publicly supporting the Fair Elections Now Act.
Simon Lee, a public policy and law school graduate from the John Glenn School of Public Affairs and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, lives in Bakersfield and works as the Central Valley regional organizer for Common Cause, a non-partisan advocacy organization promoting government accountability.
