More News

If you pay any attention at all to politics in this country, you know that money can trump, corrode and distort other considerations in ways that undermine our most basic beliefs about how a democracy should operate.

The examples are everywhere and too glaring to miss. That the United States is the only developed nation that doesn't have some version of universal health care is largely explained by the enormous profits that beneficiaries of the health care status quo reap and their resultant ability to pour millions of dollars into influencing political decision makers. Look at the contributions made to key members of Congress currently considering health care reform and you immediately understand why the process has been so tortured and tentative.

You can say the same about energy policy, as well as the efforts to deal with global warming.

Modern elections aren't always won by the candidate who raises and spends the most money, but usually they are. And despite the great story of President Obama's ability in 2008 to get lots of small contributions, that's still the exception and is likely to continue to be. Most political money comes from those with the greatest resources and the biggest stake in the decisions of government, and it always comes at a price.

If you are comforting yourself now by saying that money is only a problem at the national level, think again. In Maryland, during the 2006 election cycle — the last time we elected a governor and members of the General Assembly — the campaign contribution total was over $93 million, an increase of 69 percent from the prior election cycle in 2002. Count on it going up again in 2010, despite the problems of the economy.

There are at least three big problems that result from the way that we finance elections.

First, candidates spend extraordinary amounts of their time raising money for their election. Incumbents are constantly on the phone "dialing for dollars." Besides using time that could be better spent on public policy, the process favors candidates who are either independently wealthy — think E.J. Pipkin here — or have access to donors and donor lists as the result of family background, work connections, or some other factor. In 2006, John Sarbanes, running for public office for the first time in Maryland's Third Congressional District, had the benefit of his last name and donor lists that Paul Sarbanes had put together over five terms in the Senate.

Second, the process of soliciting campaign contributions can certainly create the appearance of impropriety. Do big donors have special entrée to elected officials? Are their pleadings going to get more favorable attention? Almost no one in politics would deny that major contributors do get access, but it's often said as if it were no big deal. It is quite a big deal.

Does it go beyond that? That's a much harder question. To give a complete answer, we'd have to analyze the psychological make-up of elected officials and be able to determine how well they keep donors, constituent interests, and public policy concerns sorted in their own minds. I think that most public officials are honest most of the time, but that doesn't mean that they are not swayed by money and its impact on their future electoral prospects.

Whatever the reality, the public believes that there is a problem. A recent Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies poll (September 2009) showed that large majorities of Marylanders are concerned about the impact of campaign contributions on the ability of lawmakers in Annapolis to act in their constituent's interests.

"Do you agree or disagree that lawmakers in Annapolis are more likely to vote the way their political contributors want them to vote, not how their constituents want them to vote?"

Strongly agree: 47 percent

Somewhat agree: 24 percent

Somewhat disagree: 10 percent

Strongly disagree: 7 percent

No answer: 12 percent

"Do you agree or disagree that big campaign contributions have a corrupting influence on state lawmakers in Annapolis?"

Strongly agree: 57 percent

Somewhat agree: 20 percent

Somewhat disagree: 4 percent

Strongly disagree: 9 percent

No answer: 10 percent

And then there's the third problem, actual corruption. Jack Abramoff and his golfing buddies in Washington are the poster children for this problem, but Maryland has not been entirely spared from the misdeeds of politicians seeking money.

In response to these concerns, Progressive Maryland is promoting legislation in this year's General Assembly session, the Clean Election Bill. The ultimate goal is to provide a voluntary, publicly funded alternative for General Assembly candidates to the current system of campaign financing. In the short term, the bill establishes a pilot project to test out the idea in the 2014 elections. The funding would come from a surcharge on convicted drunk drivers wanting to renew their driver's licenses, not from general tax revenues. It's modeled on successful programs in Arizona, Connecticut and Maine.

An earlier version got to the floor of the Senate last year with Senate President Mike Miller's support, but was sidetracked by a parliamentary maneuver. Supporters have been gathering endorsements from newspapers and backing from a broad coalition of organizations and are hopeful that the bill will be attractive to legislators looking for a positive accomplishment to appeal to voters in a session that will be dominated by bad budget news.

Thursday's Supreme Court decision nullifying sections of federal campaign finance rules doesn't directly impact this proposal. If anything, it demonstrates the importance of developing new approaches to the challenging of preventing elections from being sold to the highest bidder.

Reducing the influence of money in politics and increasing public confidence in elected officials are definitely goals worth pursuing. And who can resist the idea of Mike Miller and Progressive Maryland on the same side.

Laslo Boyd is a partner at Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies. He also teaches courses at both Towson University and the University of Baltimore. His e-mail address is lvboyd@gmail.com.