We have often commented on the lack of any connection between campaign finance “reformers” apparent definition of success and any connection to actually having “healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy” or “good government.”
The latest exhibit comes from Mark Schmitt, writing in the New Republic. Schmidt says that New York City’s primary elections show that the city’s system of government subsidized candidate campaigns is “a model for reform at the state and federal level.” As we have documented in the past, in fact New York’s system is both riddled with corruption and a source of support for corrupt politicians. Meanwhile, New York’s general election results are pretty much a foregone conclusion, with the populist grandstander Bill de Blasio a sure thing winner as the city returns to one-party rule with the exit of self-funded billionaire Michael Bloomberg from the city’s political life. (Mr. Schmitt backhandedly acknowledges that the Republican nominee, Joe Lhota, only has a chance if large independent expenditures, not limited by New York’s law, engage in the race. He describes such a competitive general election as a “danger.”) Indeed, even as de Blasio has been out decrying the allegedly corrupting effects of money, his own campaign has been embroiled in campaign finance shenanigans.
Mr. Schmitt makes the usual, boring “reformer’s” move of associating participation in the system with the success of the system. Of course, the number of people getting a subsidy hardly suggests that the system actually accomplishes anything, and we note that the justifications offered for granting such subsidies in fact have not come true. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. See also here, and here. And he is also pleased, and seems to view it as a self-evident accomplishment, that most of the money spent in New York City’s races this fall was taxpayer money, given to candidates as subsidies. We remain consistently puzzled by the dogged insistence of the reform lobby that a) it is inherently good if candidates, rather than citizen groups, do most of the speaking about politics, b) that there is no philosophical problem with forcing citizens to subsidize campaign speech with which they disagree, and c) that in a time of tight budgets, having the government subsidize candidates is a good use of public money.
Reformers sometimes like to claim that opposition to regulations on political speech are the result of ideology. Of course, all of us have ideologies, even if those ideologies are mushy and inconsistent. Nothing wrong generally with ideology. When ideology goes wrong is when it operates with a disregard for evidence and results; when assertion of good things replaces actual analysis; and when adherence to the ideology is mistaken for achievement itself, rather than a means to an achievement.
