Public Financing Alone Won't Work

Public financing has traditionally been the best strategy for reform since it relieves candidates of their dependency upon special interests. Unfortunately, despite its undoing by the Citizens United decision, many reformers continue to advocate public financing.

The Citizens United decision gave free speech protection to other sources of campaign financing. So now superPACs can accept and spend unlimited contributions to help a candidate. That won’t change if public finances were made available. And because superPACs are “independent”, their candidate will also be able to collect public financing for their official campaign.

Since candidates who get both types of help will have a clear advantage, their dependency on special interests will remain as big donors continue making the difference on whether candidates win or lose.

In fact, superPACs will leverage public financing to the advantage of their candidate as they seek public financing. When that financing comes through “voting with dollars” for example, (where citizens give government vouchers to candidates), superPAC advertising will target citizens to get them to give their vouchers to the PAC’s candidate.

Advertisements are very good at getting votes for candidates, that's why reform matters. So imagine candidates who are supported by the biggest superPACs also getting the most public financing, but with new unwarranted credibility that comes with small, publicly subsidized donors.

Even candidates who don't need the funds will use this approach to prevent opponents from getting them (since citizens can give a voucher to only one candidate in a race).

So investing tax dollars to compete with big donors will not bring reform. It may actually make things worse when taxpayers foot-the-bill to watch superPAC supported candidates scoop-up the lion’s share of public financing. Americans will once again feel cheated and more convinced that campaign finance reform is futile.

But it’s not futile if we directly address the Supreme Court decision equating money with speech. SuperPAC spending on advertisements is eliminated by CFR28 without limiting speech, thus breaking the money/speech relationship. And by ending their advertising power, public financing (an option under Subsection 2.5 of CFR28) won’t have to compete with special interest money.

We cannot work around the Supreme Court by trying to rewrite federal law again. Ideas that predated the Citizen United decision are no longer adequate. We have to amend the Constitution if we are to finally establish a system where wealthy donors cannot always find a way to manipulate our republic for their selfish purposes.

Michael J. Kyvik

p.s. Studies based upon limited examples suggesting that public financing has achieved some success in the past do not mean the effectiveness of public financing will scale nationwide and over time. Political strategists are not constrained by the predictable instincts of a fruit fly. They will adapt by using superPAC ads to gather public funds for their candidate as described above.

After thorough study of WWI strategies, France built a very expensive, seemingly impenetrable barrier called the Maginot Line along its border with Germany. On May 10, 1940, Germany simply went around it on its way to conquer all of France in less than six weeks. Faced with adaptable opposition, we must use reasoning to develop sustainable reform rather than simply study the past.