Sunday, October 28, 2007

Campaign finance reform

Campaign finance reform is an utter failure. It hasn't reduced corruption. It's unconstitutional and a clear abrogation of freedom of speech. And our politicians are busy finding ways around it.

This should come as a surprise to nobody. Trying to get money out of the political process is both futile and counterproductive. Futile because as long as Congress has the power to churn out favors -- that's the reason they call it the favor factory -- people will try to influence it. Counterproductive because it means that incumbents have even fewer reasons to fear well-financed challengers (and it takes considerable financing to take down an incumbent) and promotes candidates that are well-heeled and can fund their own campaigns (e.g. Mitt Romney, Michael Bloomberg, John Edwards, etc.).

Real anti-corruption/campaign reform efforts would involve diminishing Congressional power. What would that look like? Here's my stab at it:

1. Redistricting reform. We are in a situation where politicians choose their constituents instead of constituents choosing their politicians. They look at their state maps and, aided by computer databases and demographic information, draw districts to ensure the greatest chance that someone from their party will be elected from that district. For an example of this look at the congressional district map of Texas. The 4th, 15th and 22nd districts strike me as especially weird. Beyond perverting democracy by preventing competitive elections, this also means that politicians don't have to represent a broad spectrum of views and interests, and instead cater to a vocal minority (the most partisan member of Congress tend to come from districts with a distinct bent towards a particular party).

It doesn't have to be this way. Iowa has implemented redistricting reform by taking the power to district away from the politicians and placing it in the hands of a special bureau. Their congressional district map looks like this.

2. Implement a flat tax. This one is simple. So much of today's lobbying is devoted towards securing special tax breaks and loopholes. Take away Congress's ability to grant such loopholes and you take away the lobbying. This is a huge reason why it's hard to see a flat tax ever being passed.

3. Implement a line-item veto. Lobbyists devote much of their time to getting tax breaks, subsidies and special earmarks sent their way. This would give the president the power to strike such special interest legislation with his veto pen. This is not a cure-all, however, and I wonder if presidents would actually use this as much as proponents hope. After all, they are beholden to their own special interests. But it wouldn't hurt.

4. Earmark reform. Not exactly sure what this should look like, but something has to be done. Time and time again we are seeing earmarks going to certain interests that also just happen to be big contributors to the politician sponsoring the earmark. Even when politicians don't do this to suit a particular special interest, it is often to make the folks back home happy and help buy re-election -- just another one of the many perks and privileges of office incumbents enjoy. However, no matter what steps are taken, I have to agree that this dragon may be impossible to slay.

5. Reduce the size of government. All of the above steps are just tinkering. Serious attempts to reduce corruption has to come from a smaller government. As long as government wields significant power over people's lives lobbyists will try to sway their opinion. As long as government hands out agriculture subsidies people will be out trying to get a piece of the pie. As long as government has the ability to hand out tax breaks people will try to get one for themselves.

To use a turn of phrase, the reason that lobbyists go to the government is because that's where the power is.

Update: Some disagreement over the notion that gerrymandering produces polarization here.

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