Yesterday's posting discussed a presentation by Micahel Malbin, of the Campaign Finance Institute, in favor of contribution limits.  His audience was the Illinois Reform Commission which heard the other side of the argument, from the Smith of the Center for Competitive Politics.  Mike v. Brad; Institute v. Center; limits v. no limits.  And Malbin, in his own comments, refers to the Center's and makes clear that he does not think much of them.

     What did Smith say?  He warns against false hope about what limits would accomplish. Neither limits, nor any other measure the Commmission would adopt, would have a magical, pinpoint effect.  None would be a "silver bullet".  A changed political culture comes about when citizens and press are vigilant and when political competition is vigorous enough to dislodge from office corrupt public officials or deter them, by the spectre of exposure and defeat, from corrupt conduct.  Smith argues that contribution limits, by favoring incumbents and weakening competition, rob the political process of the vitality needed for strong, political checks against corrupt official conduct.

     Smith is right on a number of counts:  it is never said too often that reforms accomplish only so much on their own.  His testimony acidly reviews how reform organizations fret over the state of reform in states with widely varying regulatory schemes.  It seems that it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys: neither the heavily nor the lightly regulated processes seem to be faring all that well, by reform standards.  Smith also questions the relationship between the level of regulation and the quality of governance, and he cites political science literature to refute the notion that political giving plays a dominant role in shaping officeholder behavior.

     Then, again, this is not really an argument against contribution limits.  If it is true that there are other requirements for a healthy political culture, it does not follow that limits cannot, in combination with other measures, have a beneficial effect.  The corrupt official is better rewarded and, one might reasonably predict, by the large contribution—some of the time.  It is not unreasonable for policy-makers to think so, and to think so does not require them to imagine that it is always true, in all situations.  We have learned that corrupt politicians will sell pieces of their office for small contributions—but this is not a convincing argument for doing away with contributions altogether.

     Smith worries that limits serve to entrench incumbents.  Even this case is complex:  the extent to which contribution limits work only to incumbents' advantage depends on a range of factors and specific features of the legal regime, including the healthy and legal place of parties.  Certainly we know that limits can be too low:  Congress concluded so and indexed them for federal races, and the Supreme Court has established a constitutional floor of sorts, though it did not craft it all that well.

     While correct that, in many campaign finance proposals and discussion, "ideology" substitutes for serious analysis, this is true on both sides of the argument.  The case for and against campaign finance reform is regularly overstated because these cases are often just that:  a case, exercises in advocacy.  Smith is right that we should not expect too much from limits.  It is also right that we need not expect too little, or nothing of use, from them.

Bob Bauer