Double Standards

Dontcha find it a touch ex post facto for Speaker Busch to suddenly discover ethical concerns with this?:

Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch moved yesterday to ban lobbyist-sponsored receptions on legislative property after a St. Patrick's Day party was thrown last week by two horse-racing interests in the office suite of the House committee that writes slot-machine legislation.

The sponsors, Ocean Downs Racetrack and the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, stand to benefit from the slots bill passed in 2007 as well as a bill pending this session that would increase the share of slots proceeds going to racing purses.

A flyer billed the "invitation only" event as "Chairman Sheila Hixson's Annual St. Patrick's Day Party," and advertised: "Food! Friends!! Frivolity!!! Leprechauns & Libations!!!!" A lobbyist who helped organize the event, held in the Ways and Means Committee offices, said the cost was $4,683.

Although the two-hour evening reception does not appear to have violated legislative ethics laws, Busch (D-Anne Arundel) said he was concerned about how it appeared.

Gee.....ya think?

Now, here's what I love about the concept of this reception bought and paid for by lobbyists in a state government office buildings. The same crew of Democratic legislators who seem to think that this kind of whining and dining on property owned by the taxpayers is completely on the up and up are the exact same legislators who believe that we need to provide for public financing of all elections because they are worried about the influence of money in politics.

No sir, no double-standard there....

While I think the likelihood that face time and a buffet on state property during state time is not going to greatly persuade legislators one way or another, the appearance of such impropriety far exceeds the appearance of impropriety when it comes to campaign contributions and campaign donations, and certainly has nothing on the other various and sundry forms of Democratic Corruption that plague our state. The General Assembly can't have it both ways and allow themselves to be whined and dined ad naseum while restricting the ability of candidates (particularly, of course, challengers) to raise money from similar sources. This double standard does not pass the smell test.

Once and Again and Again

Last year I wrote this:

No matter how bad the budget deficit gets, leftists in Annapolis still always come back the bad idea of public campaign financing:

So guess what bad idea just got a major boost?

Prospects for public financing of General Assembly campaigns should get a major boost Friday, when Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller is expected to announce his support for a plan similar to one that failed in his chamber by a single vote in 2007, when he opposed it.

A previous opponent of public campaign financing, Miller lent his support to this year's version after good-government advocates agreed that traditional limits on campaign contributions should be raised for the first time in years, according to a person familiar with the proposal. The initiative would be paid for through voluntary taxpayer contributions rather than general tax dollars, another change that Miller sought.

Supporters of the legislation, which would go into effect in 2011, declined to speak publicly about it today, not wanting to upstage his announcement.

What's kind funny is that Miller, of all the Democrats in leadership, has been the one trying to hold the line on spending and taxes during this fiscal session. And this bill certainly will not have a $0 fiscal note in the out years.

Year after year and time and again we always come back to this issue and we always have to remind people why public financing of elections is anathema to the values of our country. To think that legislative leadership decides to shepherd this idea through the Senate at this point in time is bad policy and surprisingly bad politics, at least in the case of Miller.

When will the General Assembly get out of people's way when it comes to the conduct of our elections?

Continuing on Campaign Finance

My RM colleague Tim Patterson asks for another and he shall receive! Tim was responding to my Friday night post responding to his thoughts on campaign finance reform.

First, requiring voters to register to contribute does not impose even a minimal burden on their ability to exercise their right of speech in political campaigns through political contributions. Thanks to the Clinton-Era National Voter Registration Act, everyone can register to vote when they go to obtain or update a drivers license -- something everyone has to do at least every 5 years. Furthermore, because of Charles H. Wesley Education Foundation v. Cathy Cox, state governments must now allow third-parties to run their own voter-registration drives without the presence or blessing of state officials.

Actually, voter registration does impose a burden on the citizen in their right to exercise free speech, because the voter must take initiative to register to vote in order to participate. A citizen has the right to not register to vote, and still retains their basic constitutional rights of free speech under the First Amendment. The case of third-parties running voter registration drives is irrelevant to the conversation, as the discussion deals specifically with First Amendment issues of participation by citizens, not groups.

Second, a right to speech to does not imply an absolute right to anonymous speech. No credible judge -- even the most hippie-fied, left-wing, granola crunching hyperliberal -- has ever held that. In fact, under current FEC (and most state) reporting requirements, you have less anonymity in contributing to campaigns than you do in exercising verbal or written political speech.

I don't think I was making an argument for anonymous speech. I really don't see where expanding the current laws in this regard, however, are going to appreciably change things.

Brian also, surprisingly, raises a straw man argument in tracking registered voter donations across districts (and I assume, by extension, state lines as well). That isn't a problem. No more of a problem than Barack Obama's campaign identifying that Joe Sixpack in Wachapreague, VA actually works for Jim Bob's Gas Station. It's nothing that cannot be changed through simple technology.

I think the argument here is misunderstood. In the original post, the suggestion was limiting political donations to registered voters. The point I was trying to make was that under the system one could, in theory, limit the free speech rights of non-Maryland residents by prohibiting them from donating to state candidates due to their inability to meet the voter registration requirement. Since it crosses state lines, that jumps straight into federal court if a donor or candidate were to pursue the case.

Brian disagrees that politicians should have to publish their donor lists, claiming that the information is available 24/7. Really? I wonder how often Brian uses the so-called database the state provides. Quite frankly, I write applications like this for a living, and monkeys fucking a football could do a better job. Also, I would like to see elected officials (or even the losers) step up to the plate and say "This is my list of donors, and I am comfortable with the people donating to me." In other words, I think a couple pounds of accountability to should be infused on the recipient side of the ledger.

I use the system quite often, actually. No, it's not perfect, but it is clearly available to voters. The idea of elected officials publicizing their donor list is superfluous when that information is already easily available to the voter. If one were to determine that they were or were not going to support a candidate based on their publicizing their donor list, that's the voters choice. But no baseline has been established as to what "publishing" is, how it is done, and who is going to pay for it.

Finally, Brian makes the claim that these changes wouldn't make government cleaner, rather it would just push it back into the backroom-stuff that we already see. I would like Brian to expound on that argument futher, but I don't see how that can be true. Knowing who gave how much when -- say, like a week before the General Assembly convenes -- would be very instructive. It would force the nebulous "pay for play" schemes of the Bruce Bereanos out into the light (actually, it would probably put Bruce Bereano out of business).

It's simple really. If you are limiting the field of donors to individuals who are registered voters. You are taking millions of dollars of political donations out of the system. That money is going to find its way somewhere, either into campaign coffers against the current laws, or into the pockets of politicians. To think that "pay for play" schemes that are currently going on in Annapolis are going to be forced into the sunshine based on these new laws is, bluntly, Pollyannaish because such schemes are already against the law. Bribery is a crime. Forcing millions of dollars out of political coffers just encourages further illicit activity. Bruce Bereano doesn't go out of business, but he may go underground.

I agreed from the beginning, and still do, with the concept of near instantaneous reporting. But that only works when coupled with the removal caps on donations. That is the only way that fundraising is going to truly be done in plain sight. Further government restriction on those who can and cannot donate will have the opposite effect and provide more ways for politicians to avoid scrutiny.

No Solution

In a relative rarirty, Tim Patterson completely struck out in last night's post regarding campaign finance.

The one thing that I agree with him on is the need for transparency when it comes to campaign finance., and that all of the information regarding who is donating to what in a timely manner. But his other suggestions have constitutional problems (seeing that the Supreme Court has ruled that campaign contributions are free speech in Buckley v. Valeo) as well moving the problem of money in politics back behind closed doors.

Let's take the suggestions one at a time:

First, we should ban donations to political campaigns from corporations, businesses, LLCs, LLPs, etc.

Corporate contributions are banned at the Federal level, but not at the State level. However, my understanding of corporations is that corporations generally speaking have the same rights as individuals, so banning political contributions from these entities seems to not pass constitutional muster

Second, we should ban the creation of Political Action Committees by corporations (such as the 1st Mariner Bank PAC, for instance) and businesses.

This is similar to the issue with the corporations. Aggregations of individuals coming together for a political purpose have rights of free speech.

Third, every single dollar of every single donation must be tied to a registered voter, and every single dollar and every single donor should be reported within 72 hours and published on a website. In short, we elminate the bundling of donations through organizations, companies, PACs, 527s, etc. Get rid of all of it, and remove the donation caps. Every donation must be tied to a registered voter. If you want to give, you have to register to vote. And companies can't register to vote.

Another constitutional problem, in that it segregates people from participating in the political process. People have a right to participate in the process without registering to vote, and people also have a fundamental right to not register to vote if they so choose. Why should somebody be forced to register to vote to support a candidate. Furthermore, how would the suggestion pass muster. Who decides who is and who is not registered? If I live in District 31 and want to donate to a candidate in District 32, am I forbidden from this because I am not a registered voter in their district?

Fourth, ban the provision of in-kind services by anyone other than a registered voter. Don't let businesses turn their properties into giant advertising billboards for candidates.

Again, companies have a right to free speech and supporting a candidate of their choosing. I do not see harm in this anyway, as their contributions count against the current limit and it actually reduces the need for candidates to raise more money.

Fifth, require every elected official to publish to their constituents once during their term a complete list of their contributions received and campaign expenses.

This information is already available 24/7 to anybody who wants to read it. How is publishing the list going to matter?

Finally, these restrictions on campaign donations are not going to make government cleaner. It's just going to push government back towards the usual run-of-the-mill, backdoor corruption like we have seen with Sheila Dixon, Tommy Bromwell, et. al.

I agree with the sentiment that campaign finance laws need to be more transparent in an effort to clean up government. But the only real way to do that is to completely eliminate restrictions on how much candidates can raise from individuals and businesses, as well as restrictions on the amount donors can contribute during a four-year cycle. It is much more transparent if Joe Sixpack give $500,000 to a candidate or candidates than to sax Joe Sixpack gave $4,000 to one candidate, and spread an additional $496,000 across a bunch of different variations of Joe Sixpack LLC. But to make it more transparent, weekly donor reports need to be required in order to allow donations to be recorded and made public as soon as possible.

We need more transparency, but not at the cost of free speech.

Once and Again

No matter how bad the budget deficit gets, leftists in Annapolis still always come back the bad idea of public campaign financing:

After narrowly failing last year, advocates are trying again to make Maryland one of a handful of states that publicly fund campaigns for office, a reform they believe will diminish the influence of moneyed special interests.

"I think politicians should be beholden to the public, not to big donors," said Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, a Prince George's County Democrat who sponsored legislation the past two years that would provide state funds to political candidates who volunteer to forgo most funding from private donors.

It seems like we have to start reminding people year after year and time and again as to why this is such a bad idea. Anybody who truly believes that the public financing of elections is going to clean up politics is, as I have stated before, is shockingly naïve.

What's even more damning about the return of Senator Pinsky's proposal is the current budget mess that we find ourselves in. It's kind of hard to get jacked up about spending more of the public's money on another pointless, useless program when the people are being taxed to death in a recession. One would think that the estimated $7.5 million that would be used to fund the program would be better spent, I don't know, on crime prevention or education instead of Pollyannaish feel good programs.

If only we could get the General Assembly to pay attention to the people's business every once and awhile...

Sun moves on to shocking naïveté

In a rant about the alleged benefits of socialized campaign funding, the Sun pulls out this one:

Under legislation expected to be introduced soon in Annapolis, the program would be entirely voluntary. Candidates would qualify by raising initial seed money and then receive $40,000 to $50,000. The program would be financed chiefly by a $9 million annual withdrawal from the state's abandoned property account.

Is it a perfect solution? Probably not. But it's better than anything else yet devised. While spending government dollars on political ads may give some people pause, it's a clear-cut bargain if it promotes a better and more ethical legislature.

As I have noted before, given Maryland's historical problem with corruption, anybody who believes that socialized campaign funding is going to eliminate corruption in state government is either naïve, ignorant, or stupid. Take your pick.

No, it's still not an excuse

The Sun takes John Leopold's latest ethical problem and morphs it into yet another call for public financing of campaigns:

That's why high on the agenda for state legislators when they reconvene in January is a proposal to create a system of public financing of political campaigns. Senators, delegates and their challengers would be freed from the ethical uncertainties posed by taking money from individuals with high-stakes decisions pending before the state.

It's a system that has worked well in Arizona and Maine. Candidates qualify by raising enough seed money from enough contributors. They can then qualify for public funds - the amount depends on several variables, including whether their race is contested and whether it's a House or Senate seat. The estimated $7 million annual price tag for the program would be financed by funds the state collects each year from unclaimed accounts.

The House approved the proposal in 2006, but the bill fell just one vote short in the Senate last year. That should change, particularly if two suburban Baltimore senators, Edward J. Kasemeyer and Bobby A. Zirkin, will recall the commitment to reform they both preached as candidates in 2006, and endorse the measure. The program's cost isn't cheap, but lessening the often-harmful influence of money in Annapolis would be a bargain at twice the price.

And as I have mentioned multiple times in the past, the Sun still doesn't understand that they are proposing an expensive boondoggle that will accomplish nothing. When you are dealing with people as dishonest as John Leopold and Tommy Bromwell, public financing isn't going to make them angels, nor is it really going to even the playing field. I noted almost two years ago:

What I do not understand is why we need to fund elections from the public treasury. $7.5 million seems like it could be much better spent on hiring new teachers for struggling schools than turning politicians and consultants loose with the money. Besides, how many times have you seen a legislative candidate win despite being tremendously outspent by an opponent, winning solely on grassroots support and shoe leather? It happens every year, will certainly happen again this year, and in every year from here into the future. These Democratic Delegates seem to be addressing a concern that nobody has. It is a pointless reform proposal that accomplishes nothing but feel-good press snippets.

And it still holds true to this day. The fact of the matter is that anybody who thinks that by spending millions of dollars that could be better spent on other things (or, you know, rebated to the taxpayers) is going to get them clean elections needs to have their intelligence questioned.