Cato Institute: Effects of “Citizens United” Ruling
Daniel Broll writes:
On January 23, 2013, the Cato Institute hosted a panel discussion on the effects of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling on recent federal elections. The discussion was spilt into two panels: one focused on what changes have emerged as a result of the court’s decision and the other focused on the future of campaign finance law. While both discussions emphasized the lack of empirical evidence to suggest any significant impact, both raised the concern of potential adverse effects on future election cycles. As of now, it is still premature to draw any conclusions regarding the impact of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
One of the panelists, Ray LaRaja, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, stressed on the potential weakening of parties that unrestricted outside spending could have on the political process. Data on spending in the recent federal elections has suggested that outside spenders (i.e., Super PACs) have exponentially increased their proportion of spending relative to candidates and parties. With outside spenders establishing their dominance in the electoral process, candidates and parties have less control over their intended message. Instead, Super PACs and organizations alike can inject their narrow viewpoints into the system and crowd out parties’ voices through pure saturation of the market, potentially further polarizing constituents. This notion could increase candidates’ favorability to these groups and further distort their message by having them shape their campaigns to align themselves with Super PACs. Despite these concerns, the only change realized in 2012 is the ease with which money can be flowed into the system for outside spenders.
On the other hand, some of the discussion leaned towards optimism, and alleviated some of the fears of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In terms of fundraising, the increase in outside spending could potentially help level the playing field for challengers against incumbents. When direct fundraising doesn’t reach optimal levels in competitive elections, Super PACs have the ability to increase awareness of the challenger and make it easier for him/her to gain favorability. Also, Super PACs provide additional promotion for candidates when donors have exceeded their fundraising limits with political parties. Although there isn’t evidence to suggest that Super PAC spending can provide substantial advantages for challengers, if any marginal impact does exist, it can at least provide additional competitiveness to the candidate’s campaign.
In terms of potential solutions or ways to decrease the presence of interest group dominance in the political process, very few suggestions were made. Partly, because there is no real evidence to suggest that there is a significant problem, but also because very few people believe that anything could be done. Lawrence Lessig, professor at Harvard Law School, said reform is unlikely to happen because of the political system’s dependency on fundraising. The United States has two elections: the “money election” and the general election. If candidates do really well in the “money election” (fundraising) they have a shot at winning the general election. Instead of people having a direct and absolute authority in deciding their representatives, powerful interests have the immediate authority, and then the ultimate authority is given to the citizens. Unfortunately, we’ve deviated from the original conception of “representative democracy” and now that system is inclusive of powerful minority factions who don’t hold the public’s interest.
Almost all of the panelists said that the discussion of campaign finance reform is unlikely to take place in years to come. Fortunately, despite current speculation, there isn’t much evidence to suggest that minority factions have made much impact on the federal elections post Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. For now, we can only hope that this ruling will not adversely impact elections to come.
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