Campaign Finance Reform: A Solution in Search of a Problem

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

— P.J. O'Rourke

It's always difficult to watch people working hard for nothing. That's how I felt reading about New Hampshire Rebellion's silly sixteen mile walk last Saturday, to highlight the "problem" of money in politics.

New Hampshire Rebellion was founded by a Harvard law professor named Lawrence Lessig, and the walk's aim, dutifully reports the Portsmouth Herald, was to "bring hope for change" — a goal as vapid as it is banal.

According to the group's supporters, political donations are the root of all evil. Michael Donovan of New Castle said just that. "Money in politics is the root of every serious problem I can think of," he claims — apparently not having done much thinking. Chris Muns, a state senate candidate from Hampton, said, "I don't want big money coming into the election from special interest groups."

What these folks really mean is that they don't want people spending money to promote a different point of view. That's why Michael Bloomberg can pledge $50 million to promote gun control in New Hampshire and elsewhere — with nary a squeak of protest from the concerned citizens at New Hampshire Rebellion. It also helps to explain how the group can announce, with a straight face, the formation of a Super PAC "big enough to win over a Congress that would put in fundamental reform by 2016." So far, they've raised about five million — dollars, that is; not puppies.

Such disingenuous behavior reminds me of an experience of my own in the political arena, back in 2005. I foolishly allowed a friend of mine — a good friend, or so I thought, the bastard — to talk me into running for the Virginia House of Delegates, as a Libertarian candidate. There were three others in the race — a Republican, a Democrat, and a Green. At a public forum, we were all asked about campaign finance laws and what we would do to "keep money out of politics." I was amazed that no one saw the hypocrisy in the Democratic candidate's pledge to introduce legislation limiting campaign contributions if elected — considering he had raised more money than any of us to support his election campaign.

In other words, once ensconced in a position of power he would do what he could to hamstring the competition. How noble.

There is no reason to believe the hype about money corrupting politics. First of all, politicians are scum by definition — we would be hard pressed to find a more corrupted, vile, and unprincipled pack of scoundrels to begin with.

The second issue is this nonsense about having a "democracy that will work again." What is democracy, but two wolves and a sheep deciding on the dinner menu?

Freedom — the right of each individual to live his or her life, so long as others are left equally free to pursue their own happiness — is what made this country great, not majority rule. This was never meant to be a democracy; our country is a republic, and our respective states are likewise guaranteed a republican form of government by the US Constitution.

Those who wrote our federal and state constitutions actually feared democracy. The sacred rights of the people — to their religion, to peaceably assemble, to keep and bear arms, to privacy, to trial by jury, to private property, etc. — were of paramount concern.

They wanted a government of limited scope — so that, instead of a tyrannical majority imposing its will on the rest of us, the vast majority of issues would remain in the private sector, where individuals could work separately or together, as they saw fit, to address them.

They wanted a decentralized society, not a democratic one.

It's the height of naivety for "reformers" to suggest that we all sit idly by while a gang tries to rob us of our freedom. If the awesome power of government is increasingly unleashed, to meddle in people's affairs, because half of our legislators plus one can be persuaded to vote a certain way, then you can bet your bottom campaign finance dollar that people will do whatever they can to influence the outcome of that vote. The problem in this scenario isn't money in a democracy. Democracy is the problem. 

In their 2005 book Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner wrote that Americans spend about as much on political campaigns as they do on chewing gum (page 12).

Tooth decay is a bigger problem than campaign spending. 

When the Citizens United decision was announced we were promised a falling sky. But then Karl Rove formed a Super PAC that spent over $100 million in 2012 — achieving virtually nothing. Last September anti-gun groups outspent pro-gun groups by about seven to one in the Colorado recall elections — and they still lost. Just a few weeks ago, political newcomer David Brat beat the pants off of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary election — despite the fact that Cantor's campaign spent almost as much on food as Brat's spent on everything.