Recently, a parliamentary special select committee, minus the Opposition, reported on the issue of campaign financing. The committee was established on 28 April this year to consider national and other laws, regulations and experiences with political campaign financing and to make recommendations.
The committee argued – and I agree – that the issue of campaign financing is very important if Guyana is to strengthen its fledgling democracy and that the government that takes office after the 2011 elections will need to give it serious thought. In my view, the issue is also of sufficient importance to require a much broader and deeper national discourse, and since the committee made no substantive recommendations and there was no parliamentary consensus on presenting the report, one wonders why it could not have awaited the coming of the new regime!
After considering various laws and experiences, the committee recommended some general principles, which it hopes will guide future work in this area, the most important one being a commitment to prevent political parties from falling under the influence of their financial backers. The committee also recommended that the system be designed to “allow for an affirmative action policy to ensure increased political participation and representation of women, youths, hinterland communities, [and] disabled people.” Experience teaches that these objectives are not easily achieved and that for such rules to be efficacious, some very important issues must be addressed.
The view that if elections are truly to reflect the will of the people rather than the will of those with financial resources there needs to be a limit on and transparency in campaign financial contributions has been the source of much quarrel and legal action in the United States both before and after the passing the US Financial Contribution Act in 1971. The two examples below are indicative of the scope and complicated nature of our pursuit.
As a backdrop, the US public campaign finance system offers to match the money raised by candidates during their party primaries and then offers a government lump sum to those candidates who choose to play by the rules on spending limits. It also provides some financing for the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions. Also worthy of note is the large number of non-governmental organisations who usually and most vocally support or criticize candidates, depending on whether or not their policies mesh with those of the organisations.
Broadly, the idea is usually to build confidence in the political process by restricting the improper interference of wealth and to facilitate a conversation among ordinary citizens that will encourage more of them to become informed participants in the electoral process. The system has however been consistently thwarted by loopholes and apart from run-of-the-mill disputations such as whether or not it is right for a government to fund politicians with taxpayers’ money whose views taxpayers may find abhorrent, or whether the system should be designed in a manner that discourages fringe candidates, there are important issues, such as those regarding the relationship between contributions and freedom of expression, the appropriateness of affirmative action etc., which should be debated.
When the issue of campaign financing reached the Supreme Court, the latter made some pertinent observations. It made a distinction between direct contributions to a candidate and expenditure by and on behalf of a candidate. The court held that certain limitations on contributions are acceptable because they entail only a marginal restriction on expression but more readily serve the stated interest of limiting the appearance and fact of corruption resulting from large individual financial contributions. Limits also exist where expenditures expressly “advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office.” Of course, this has not prevented the growth of a thriving business in independent expenditures, which rather than promote a candidate, criticize the positions of his opponent.
As Richard Esenburg observed, the result has been that what cannot be done through contributions can be done with expenditure. Dollars that can no longer be given to a candidate are given to a political party; money that cannot be contributed to a party is given to an independent organization and dollars that can no longer be spent in one way simply flow to a new use. Thus, the combination of the various US Supreme Court decisions may be to “render public financing systems, at least as a device to reduce substantially the influence of private money on elections, effectively futile.”
The Supreme Court did not accept that we need to help to ensure that a candidate’s financial support closely reflects her/his popular support. In typical American market orientation style, it argued that rather than trust elected officials to superintend the electoral process in pursuit of some “pure” manifestation of democracy, it is better to allow broad public participation. “Since contending factions enjoy different electoral advantages … allowing them to engage in relatively unfettered competition is preferable to management of the political process in a futile – and unavoidably self-interested effort to eliminate unfair advantages.” (See Richard M. Esenberg, “The Lonely Death of Public Campaign Financing” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2010)
In the 2008 US presidential campaign, Mr. Obama became the first candidate ever to opt completely out of both primary and general election public financing. Largely using the internet, he raised some US$750 million and the fundraising capacity of Obama and George Bush far outstripped the amount of public funds available. This, it was thought, would put an end to the US system of public financing of elections. Not so: the effort to limit the effects of money and make the process more open continues.
In response to a recent Republican Bill to terminate the system, the Washington Times reported (26/01/11) that by way of a White House policy statement Obama voiced the traditional concerns: he wanted the system fixed, not abolished for the “effect of ending the current system would be to expand the power of corporations and special interests in the nation’s elections; to force many candidates into an endless cycle of fundraising at the expense of engagement with voters on the issues; and to place a premium on access to large donor or special interest support, narrowing the field of otherwise worthy candidates.”
