An article from
Saturday's Globe has been running through my mind these last few days. At first the article was sort of innocous yet informative. However, the more I have thought about the article the more I find that it captures, on a microscopic level, the pull I feel over campaign finance reform.
Apparently Boston City Council President Michael Flaherty raised over two-thirds of his $310,000 from individuals living outside of Boston. I realize that with the large commuter nature of a city the size of Boston's as well the numerous projects going on in the city at any given time, it would not be unusual for a decent percentage of a candidate's contributions to come from outside city limits. I think, however, that two-thirds may be a little excessive. That is not was has really been eating at me though. What bothers me is the unvarnished telling of the story the Globe offers. For instance, the article points out that employees at mega-law firm Brown Rudnick provided contributions because the firm "has a large governmental law practice." Or how about the Millenium Partners, a development firm in New York responsible for luxury condos and the new Ritz Hotel who contributed. Another developer, Intercontinental Real Estate, aslo felt the urge to contribute. What is the connection (if it is not obvious yet)? The Globe, offering that unvarnished approach I mentioned, ties it together perfectly: the connection is that nearly all of the out-of-towners have "business with city government."
The fact that we have devolved to far that we no longer need to hide or make excuses for the fact that people give money not to support the ideology as much as to buy their way to special projects offends me. We have lost the battle between clean elections and outright graft. These people are giving Flaherty money for one of two reasons, either because they like that he has already supported their projects and therefore they are interested in seeing him re-elected, or, and this is the most reprehesible, they hope that Council President Flaherty will "make note" of the contribution that helped put him in office when he needs to make a decision on their project. (I don't mean to specifically point out City Council President Flaherty, he is simply the subject of the article and I am sure that if we look at any other candidate we will find nearly indentical patterns.) In the case of LVI Environmental Services I think it is the latter because it holds a $3.9 million contract for which they have yet to actually provide any service.
The problem is finding a balance. I firmly believe in the First Amendment and an individual's right to speak. The Supreme Court, back in the 1970s, ruled that candidates could essentially spend an unchecked amount and that individual contributions were a form of speech that could not be regulated until they reached a certain point (that limit today is $2,000 and plus a limit on overall contributions). The court also recognized that the federal government was able to limit the individual contributions because it had a compelling interest in trying to stem corruption or the appearance of corruption. The battle for balance then is between an individual's ability to express herself and society's interest in fair, clean elections.
On the blogs lately there has been a lot of hype surrounding H.R. 4194 and other attempts to bring blogs into compliance with the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Refom Act (BCRA). 4194 seeks to close a loophole that allows blogs to become fronts for campaigns or individuals to circumvent the campaign finance laws by raising unlimited amounts of unregulated money and distributing it to other campaigns and candidates. I am torn on whether a measure like 4194 should pass because blogs would then be regulated by the government and the civic effects the blogs produced would be greatly threatened. Sites would feel less inclined to write about candidates and campaigns for fear they would run afoul of guidelines. If a site decided to endorese a particular candidate and encouraged others to support him or her or to contribute it is possible that such a blog would be violating the law. The chill on speech is not good. However, there is nothing stopping any large multi-national from setting up a fake blog and funneling tons of cash to a few pols they want to see re-elected. We certainly don't want to be in the business of determining what is a "real" blog versus what is a "fake" blog.
In the end I am compelled to think that the reasoning underlying the decision in Buckley (the seminol case that ruled in favor of regulations on contributions), that the appearance of corruption or corruption itself, is justification enough for the government to seek some regulation of blogs. As bloggers and consumers of blogs we should hope for such regulations ourselves. In order for this medium to be effective it must be genuine. If companies and campaigns are allowed to create "front blogs" the disseminate bogus information, the effect of the geniune bloggers is diluted. If a mega-site like DailyKos wants to raise money for great candidates around the country, and I hope it does because of its vast audience, why should it not report the activity? Kos' content is in no way compromised by complying with current regulations that require anyone to report contributions raised in excess of $200. The government will not shut him down for being overly Democratic, that is his right. I think that requiring blogs to report their contributions, and only contributions intended for use by candidates, reaches the appropriate balance between Kos' right to say what he wants and our right as spectators and participants in elections, to know that they are being run fairly and hopefully someday, without the influence of money.
Cross posted at Mass Revolution Now!