Public Financing in American Elections

10

10 mmm Public Financing, Attitudes toward Government and Politics, and Efficacy Michael G. Miller and Costas Panagopoulos T he strength of democracy can often be gauged by citizens’ attitudes and relationship toward their government, elected officials, and the political process. Positive evaluations of government are generally viewed as a desirable feature of democratic governance. In the United States, however, scholars have detected sharp declines in overall levels of public trust or confidence in government since the 1950s (Alford 2001). Americans’ political efficacy—the belief that one can influence the political process— has similarly declined over the same period, resulting in lower levels of political participation (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). Concerns about deteriorating confidence in public figures, institutions, and processes, together with the potential implications of these developments, have ignited spirited intellectual and policy debates. Some analysts contend that reforming the system of campaign financing in the United States would improve Americans ’ perceptions about the political process. Public financing of elections is often touted as a policy antidote for anemic levels of trust in government and political efficacy. Proponents of “clean” or “fair” elections programs routinely assert that these initiatives will enhance public perceptions about government and political efficacy. A recent federal proposal for public funding of elections, the Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826), introduced by Rep. John Larson (D-CT) in 2009, explicitly lists seven ways in which the reform would result in the “enhancement of democracy.” Among these, the sponsors claim the bill would “restore public confidence in the integrity and fairness of the elec- public financing, attitudes, and efficacy 239 toral and legislative processes” and increase “the public’s confidence in the accountability of Members to the constituents who elect them.” Advocates argue public funding programs would reduce the appearance of corruption or the influence of moneyed interests in the electoral process, thereby strengthening perceptions of government and elected officials. Despite the fact that reformers frequently conjure up the purported link between public financing and attitudes toward government, surprisingly few systematic assessments of this relationship exist. A recent study that similarly laments this void in the extant scholarly literature and seeks to shed light on this question finds no evidence that campaign finance regulations influence political efficacy (Primo and Milyo 2006). In fact, the authors find that public financing, in particular, may actually exert a negative impact on efficacy levels (Primo and Milyo 2006). This initial finding is compelling and, in some ways, surprising and counterintuitive. Additional empirical investigation is warranted to confirm, contextualize, or update this preliminary conclusion. In this chapter, we analyze available survey data to reconsider the impact of public financing of elections on attitudes toward government and political efficacy. First, we outline our analytical procedures, arguing that we advance refinements that represent improvements over previous approaches. Following our description of the empirical protocols, we present the results of our analyses and a discussion about their implications. By way of conclusion, we end with a brief summary of the findings and suggestions for subsequent research. Data and Methodology Our study focuses on examining the relationship between public funding and mass efficacy in Arizona and Maine, which first implemented full funding systems in the 2000 elections. In those states, candidates may qualify for full public funding by raising a relatively small amount of money from a fixed number of individual contributors. Once they successfully fulfill this requirement, clean elections candidates receive public subsidies sufficient to wage a credible campaign. In return, participating candidates agree to raise no further funding from private sources and to abide by spending limits equal to their subsidy amounts. Because public funding fully supports participating candidates in Arizona and Maine, we anticipate that the capacity of funding programs to affect public sentiment toward government will be most observable in those states. Arizona and Maine therefore seem to be logical places in which to search for a more trusting or efficacious electorate. 240 michael g. miller and costas panagopoulos We employ survey data from the 2004 National Rolling Cross-Section of the National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) to advance our analyses . We opt for NAES data because the sample size is sufficiently large to allow for meaningful comparison of the fully funded states of Arizona and Maine with others. The data set was compiled using telephone interviews conducted between October 2003 and November 2004, and contains over 81,000 completed interviews, including 1,455 from Arizona and 553 from...