Whither Campaign Finance? The Fair Elections Now Act

It's funny that campaign finance came up here yesterday; the same day that a bipartisan group of senators and representatives announced a new piece of legislation to provide public financing of congressional elections.

For starters the system being proposed by Senators Durbin (IL-D) and Specter (PA-R) and Representatives Jones (NC-R), Larson (CT-D) and Pingree (ME-D) does not address presidential campaign finance at all. Yes, after Obama became the first presidential candidate to opt out of the federal matching funds system in the general election, that leaves a pretty big elephant (er, uh donkey?) in the room. Still this legislation is notable because it severely cuts back the cap on individual contributions for congressional candidates wanting to qualify for federal funding.

How does one qualify, you might ask?
In the House, for a candidate to receive access to $900,000, he or she must raise at least $50,000 dollars from 1500 contributors ($33/contributor) in amounts no greater than $100. 40% of that $900,000 can be spent in the primary campaign while the remainder is left for the general election.

In the Senate, things are slightly different because of the greater disparity in terms of numbers of constituents per senator. Senators can collect $1.25 million plus $250,000 for each of his or her state's congressional disticts by raising money (Again, in amounts no greater than $100.) from 2000 contributors and an additional 500 others from each congressional district. In this case, one-third of the federal money could be used in the primary campaign with the remainder left for the general election campaign.

Additional money can be raised in amounts up to $100 from home state residents and matched at a 4:1 rate by the government.

This is a novel idea (one that has been tried at the state level), but there are obviously some questions that would arise should this be attempted at the national level.

1. If the balance constitutionally is between free speech and potential undue influence of money, does a $100 limit contributions not overprotect against the latter at the expense of the former? This would be a major issue in any challenge to this legislation if it were to become law. But to even get to that point it will likely have to survive the journey through two chambers packed with incumbents that would be lukewarm to the idea on average.

2. The constitutional questions are answered to some extent by the voluntary nature of the system. If it were a requirement that all candidates for congress adhere to these rules, the shouts of opposition would be much louder. But honestly, who is opting into this system if it isn't required?

3. What happens to the money in the event that a candidate runs unopposed in either (or both) the primary or general election? Is that money automatically forfeited or can primary money be carried over to the general election? (This one comes with an assist from occasional commenter, Greg.)

4. Timing. The timing of this announcement isn't the best. But you can't wait on the economy to turn around when reform is at stake necessarily. Still, more taxpayer money to politicians isn't something very many people/voters want to hear about at the moment. There's a reason fewer and fewer people check that $3 box on their tax forms every year.

This will be an interesting test case to follow because the other shoe is really going to drop when and if this process or something similar is extended in some way, shape or form to the financing of presidential campaigns.

UPDATE: Politico has more on the newly dubbed Fair Elections Now Act.


Recent Posts:
NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (3rd Round) Are Now Up

NY-20: Does a Tie Mean the Nation is Brutally Divided?

All Eyes on NY-20

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (3rd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Final Four Round]

It may be indicative of the anti-climatic nature of the contest, it may be that I was busy, or it may be that I forgot, but here are the third round results for NPR's Political March Madness. I'll say this: Ron Paul may be coasting to victory in this thing (Hey, organization matters!), but there is some serious South Carolina power represented in the Final Four. Both Jim DeMint and Mark Sanford claim one of those spots. Something tells me the selection committee would try to have these two face off to avoid the "splitting the early South Carolina primary vote" problem. But who could have seen this Final Four coming?

The championship pairing will be revealed on Friday, April 3.


Recent Posts:
NY-20: Does a Tie Mean the Nation is Brutally Divided?

All Eyes on NY-20

Public Financing, Dead?

NY-20: Does a Tie Mean the Nation is Brutally Divided?

If a Tedisco win meant the beginning of a Republican comeback nationally and a Murphy win meant the nation is on-board with the Obama administration, what does a 65 vote margin with 610 of 610 precincts reporting (and a few thousand absentee ballots to be counted) mean?

[Click for Election Results via The Saratogian]

There's only one answer to that: elections are fun!

UPDATE: As per Jack, via The Saratoagian, it's now down to a 25 vote Murphy edge in NY-20.

[Click to Enlarge]

Recent Posts:
All Eyes on NY-20

Public Financing, Dead?

Florida in 2012: A Companion Bill

All Eyes on NY-20

[Click Map to Enlarge]

FHQ has been quiet on this one, which is unusual for an elections site. But special elections are nice. For elections nerds like myself, they are a welcome respite from the dark period between regularly scheduled elections. However, it is difficult to apply lessons learned from past special elections to any new one that comes along simply because the circumstances from one special election to the next (or from a general election to a special election) vary so widely.

The congressional special elections in the winter and spring of 2008 were nice in that all of them were conservative districts that broke toward the Democrats. There was something of a trend that could be parsed from that; a trend that culminated with Obama winning the White House and Democrats increasing their majorities in Congress. But it's easy to read too much into these specials. For one thing, they aren't always successfully nationalized. Often they hinge on state or local quirks. Scott Murphy is attempting to nationalize the NY-20 special by linking Jim Tedisco to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. And Tedisco, for his part, is running away from national Republicans despite leaning on NRCC money. In the context of decreasing poll numbers, that's never really a good sign.

Can we extrapolate anything from those poll numbers, though? Given that there have only been six polls* conducted (three of them partisan), there isn't a whole lot of information out there. What those polls do tell us is that the trend has been toward Murphy. He has gained 8 points from poll to poll in the Siena sequence of polls and has a lead that is right around the margin of error to slightly above it.

But drawing anything anymore substantive than that from those numbers is a fool's errand. [Just look back to the Georgia Senate runoff for one such example.] Specials always come down to turnout. And with this race being so closely scrutinized on the national level, polling could either energize Republicans (in a Republican-leaning district) to head out to their nearest polling station or it could, given the current trend and the potential perception of reality, keep them away. For Democrats, it is a question of whether they are still as motivated as they were in November when Obama won the district by three points and incumbent Democratic congresswoman (turned senator), Kirsten Gillibrand, took over three-fifths of the vote.

But, does the tide wash a little further up the beach or has it already begun receding? That's what the media will be talking about tonight when the polls close at 9pm, but in special elections it is rarely that black and white. The results will do a better job of telling us whether Murphy was able to successfully nationalize this race.

*You'll have to back out to Pollster's front page to see the information on the sixth poll; the third one conducted by the DCCC.


Recent Posts:
Public Financing, Dead?

Florida in 2012: A Companion Bill

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (2nd Round) Are Now Up

Public Financing, Dead?

John McCain sure thinks so. And that isn't that much of a stretch. [Truth be told, that isn't a stretch at all.]

But as Jay Cost said yesterday over at the HorseRaceBlog, it really isn't as simple as Obama opting out broke the system. The seeds for this were sewn all the way back in 1980 when John Connally shunned the public financing system to go-it-alone in his bid for the Republican nomination. Of course, his $11 million raised (just more than $28 million in 2009 dollars) earned one whole delegate, but the idea was out there. Candidates for office, especially the presidency, could out-raised the matching funds cap, not have to adhere to state spending caps (during the primaries) and be much better off because of it.

Now, Connally's tremendous failure was an example that certainly caused many a presidential campaign pause, but by 1996 the system had (really) outgrown its usefulness. A self-financed candidate like Steve Forbes could enter the fray and make waves without any real political experience. That his efforts and the competition from others in the Republican field that year put Dole at a major disadvantage once the Kansas senator wrapped up the nomination was a lesson to future candidates on both sides of the aisle. In other words, if your gauge is pointing to E at the end of the primary phase and your opponent's (especially an incumbent) is not, then your bid for the White House is going to be that much tougher.

And that lesson was extended to the general election campaign last fall. No candidate can put him or herself behind such a financial eight ball and hope to wind up in the Oval Office.

H/t: John Pitney over at Epic Journey for the Cost link. Good stuff.


Recent Posts:
Florida in 2012: A Companion Bill

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (2nd Round) Are Now Up

How 'Bout Dem Heels!?!

Florida in 2012: A Companion Bill

File this one under things I should have checked for when I was updating the 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar last week. What I missed was the fact that there is a companion bill to HB 759 in the Florida State Senate.

Now, here's the thing about HB 759 and the Senate version, S 2304: They are sponsored and being pushed by Democrats in a Republican-dominated legislature. Rep. Kevin Rader filed the House version in early February, but the Senate version was not filed by Sen. Arthenia Joyner (the minority whip) until the end of February. While both bills call for a return to the second Tuesday in March date the Sunshine state used for presidential primaries between 1976 and 2004, that outcome isn't likely during this session unless and until the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee makes a recommendation to the full RNC that would potentially put Florida's current (last Tuesday in January) position in violation of those rules.

In other words, there is no urgency to the matter at the moment (...from either party's perspective). The Democrats just want to get something done while the issue is still somewhat salient. And the Republicans are just taking a wait and see approach.


Recent Posts:
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How 'Bout Dem Heels!?!

McCain's 2012 Name-Dropping on Meet the Press

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (2nd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Third Round]

Round three voting is now underway in NPR's Political March Madness (link above). And if round two is indicative (a significant increase over the first round's paltry number of upsets), the third round should be pretty unpredictable. I think it is safe to say that this thing has been hijacked in a way that Diebold could even appreciate.

But a Ron Paul-Barack Obama general election should be a fun one.

NPR does seem to be trying to combat this hijacking to some extent. There's a quick turnaround on round three voting. Results will be out on Wednesday April 1. [Then again, they have to fit this in before the real tournament ends next Monday.]


Recent Posts:
How 'Bout Dem Heels!?!

McCain's 2012 Name-Dropping on Meet the Press

Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

How 'Bout Dem Heels!?!

Looks like Obama's pick (a wise one it was) to win it all in college basketball has advanced to the Final Four.


I have to make some effort to put a political spin on things, but I am an alum. Well, this is the only team he actually played a pick-up game with on the campaign trail last spring.


Recent Posts:
McCain's 2012 Name-Dropping on Meet the Press

Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (3/28/09)

McCain's 2012 Name-Dropping on Meet the Press

Look folks, we're in the midst of the 2012 invisible primary right now. Whether you like it or not, prospective candidates are attempting to position themselves for a run at the White House in three years time. Part of what gets the ball rolling on future fundraising, consultant networking and valued endorsements is having your name mentioned in those discussions. If your name is being dropped in the context of a White House run it makes it much more believable than if it were not.

That being said, former GOP presidential nominee, John McCain, was on Meet the Press this morning and was asked about future leaders of the Republican Party. Here's the question from David Gregory and McCain's response (from the show's transcript):

MR. GREGORY: In terms of future leaders of the Republican Party, would you like to see Sarah Palin become president?

SEN. McCAIN: I’d like to see her compete. I think we’ve got some very good candidates: Jon Huntsman and–the problem when I run down these names, I always leave, leave out a, a name–Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty. There’s, there’s so many. There’s a lot of good, fresh talent out there.

Jindal and Pawlenty are not newcomers to this discussion, nor is Sarah Palin, for that matter. All were talked about as potential running mates for McCain last fall, and VP talk to future White House run is a logical extension. And though Huntsman wasn't in the VP chatter, his name has been bandied about as a darkhorse for 2012. FHQ has been quite high on the current Utah governor in our 2012 brackets discussions (see here and here), and as GOP 12 notes, McCain hasn't been shy about mentioning the governor (an early supporter of the Arizona senator's presidential bid ahead of 2008).

My question (and it is one I see the folks over at GOP 12 asked as well): You know who isn't being mentioned?

Mitt Romney.

But neither is Mike Huckabee. And that sets up an interesting dichotomy to the emerging GOP field for 2012. There's an old guard/new face split there. And that came into play with the seeding in FHQ's bracket yesterday. Among those top four Romney, Huckabee and Gingrich all represent the conventional wisdom on GOP presidential nominations: The next guy in line gets it. The bottom half (Pawlenty, Huntsman, Sanford and Crist) are the fresh faces. [Bobby Jindal fits here too.] Sarah Palin has elements of both groups. For his part, McCain seems to be a fresh face kinda guy. But having the former nominee of the party mentioning your name in the context of a presidential run can't hurt.

[For comparison's sake John Kerry during a similar point in 2005 was fielding more questions about his own potential 2008 run than offering his thoughts on alternatives. But McCain's age puts him in a unique position in that regard. He is more a Bob Dole circa 1996 than a Kerry post-2004.]


Recent Posts:
Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (3/28/09)

Minnesota in 2012

Elite Eight: FHQ's 2012 Presidential Primary Bracket

[Click to Enlarge]

Last week when I posted the retrospective 2008 presidential candidate bracket, I said that I wanted to put one together for 2012 as well. Well, I did before NPR put out their bracket with the top 32 GOP contenders for 2012. Still, some were interested in seeing FHQ's top 8. Here, without comment, is that Elite Eight (with an Obama Tanks and is Challenged scenario tacked on).

The comments section awaits your cheers and boos.


Recent Posts:
The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (3/28/09)

Minnesota in 2012

Illinois in 2012 Redux