An alternative campaign finance reform: public “laundries” for secret cash contributions
✍ Scribed by John H. Beck
- Book ID
- 104645960
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Year
- 1978
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 139 KB
- Volume
- 33
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-5829
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Pittman (1977)
conduded his recent article on campaign contributions with the comment that the purchase of political influence through campaign contributions can be eliminated only b.y reducing government intervention in the economy, so that political influence has less economic value, or by public Financing of campaigns. The first alternative Pittman found unappealing because 'the potential for harm from private power, once government has ceased its "interference", seems at least as great as that from public power' (p. 50). The second alternative has the disadvantage that 'politicians are maximizers of utility as much as are other human beings' (p. 51), and in allocating public funds to finance campaigns they are unlikely to ignore their own interests. Pittman had no solution to this dilemma but hoped 'that a strong free press and a few public officials possessing an "irrational" degree of concern for the public good' would maintain a 'republican-style system operating with some degree of beneficence for its citizens' (p. 51). Pittman's earlier study (1976, p. 78), when compared with his later work (1977, p. 42), offers some hope that public exposure of campaign contributions has reduced influence-buying by federally regulated industries. But this may have only diverted resources to other means of political influence.
The purpose of the present note is to suggest that campaign finance reform should move in another direction. The identity of contributors should not be made public but more secret through public 'laundering' of campaign contributions! The identity of contributors should be hidden from the recipients as well as from the general public. The rationale behind this proposal is that it would discourage campaign contributions as a quid pro quo for the candidate taking certain policy positions in much the same manner as the secret ballot discourages vote buying. With a secret ballot the campaigner buying a vote cannot be sure that the seller delivered the goods, i.e., voted for the candidate for whom he was paid to vote. Secret campaign contributions -secret not only to the public but also to the candidates -would discourage the purchase of government favor with campaign contributions because the candidate taking a policy position in exchange for contributions could not be sure the supposed contributor had