Inside the Campaign Finance Battle: Court Testimony on the New Reforms

Public Attitudes toward Campaign Finance Practice and Reform

Public Attitudes toward Campaign Finance Practice and Reform Robert Y. Shapiro Robert Y. Shapiro is chair and professor of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. He has written and taught extensively on survey research and public opinion. He was an expert witness for the defense in this litigation. Shapiro’s full report summarizes relevant scholarly studies and public opinion data on campaign finance practices and reform proposals based on many surveys conducted over the past decade. This excerpt presents what he considers are the major findings supported by the evidence from these sources. The public, he argues, is troubled by the role of money in the political process, associates large campaign contributions with special interest influence and corruption , opposes large unregulated contributions to political parties, and supports the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) reforms of the campaign finance system. Overview The analysis and summary here focus on public opinion data based on responses to surveys that were fielded since 1990 (except for trend data that go back a bit further). The full data assembled include responses to questions that were asked in surveys since the 1940s. The findings from those earlier questions are similar, but for purposes of brevity they are not included nor discussed here. To what extent has the public seen the need to reform the campaign finance system to limit the influence of money in the political process? For well more than a decade, the public has continued to see the need to limit the political influence of money. The political science literature on public opinion toward political reform shows that large majorities of Americans, as a general matter, see the need for limits on the amount of 259 Evidence from Public Opinion Research 06 1583-8 part3a 3/25/03 12:01 PM Page 259 money candidates for federal elective office can raise, contribute, and ultimately spend on their campaigns.1 Regarding the general need for campaign finance reform, solid majorities of the public have been somewhat or very dissatisfied with the campaign finance laws governing the way political parties and candidates raise money, particularly as they hear news about questionable political fundraising . The public has seen these problems in fund-raising as occurring in most or all campaigns, and it has perceived that they have occurred more often, or have otherwise been worse, than in the past. The public has consistently responded that the campaign finance system needs major or complete overhaul. Large majorities of the public, when asked, have supported the idea of reform and new campaign finance laws to deal with this problem; they have also supported stricter laws controlling campaign fund-raising. When polls ask directly about the need for stricter new laws in contrast to increased enforcement of existing laws, the need for stricter laws receives more support. Critics of reform have emphasized how the public does not see campaign reform as a high-priority problem. The evidence they cite, however, is completely misleading. We report data that these critics consistently ignore. First and foremost, when asked directly about campaign finance reform in different ways, majorities or sizeable percentages of the American public have been concerned about this issue and have considered it a high and even top priority, consistent with the troubles the public has seen in campaign fund-raising. When compared with other issues that compete for government and public attention, it is understandable that the issue has not normally been seen in the same way as pressing economic problems , crises in health care and retirement income, crime, war, terrorism, and other international crises. Campaign finance has been more salient when campaign finance problems and scandal have been given the kind of attention by political leaders and the news media that these other issues have regularly been given. In light of this, the large percentages of the public (often majorities, depending on the survey question wording and context ) who have reported that campaign finance reform is an important issue is striking. Last, notwithstanding the public’s ongoing cynicism and lack of confidence toward many aspects of political life,2 substantial percentages of the public have thought that campaign finance reforms can be effective, can reduce the influence of money in politics at least somewhat, can make the public more optimistic about government, and would be good for democracy. 260 public opinion and corruption: research 06 1583-8 part3a 3/25/03 12:01 PM Page 260 [3.145.183.137] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 09:32...