National Democracy Dollars - Details
What might a federal campaign finance voucher system be like? Same idea as Seattle's successful system but structured for different issues.
Note to readers: My biggest current concern for this essay is its length, about 5700 words. I could divide it into two posts, one explaining the structure and a second defending the controversial aspects. I suspect dividing would be better. Unfortunately, given the time I must spend on caregiving and the speed of the ongoing political campaign, there is a tradeoff between just posting it as one essay and spending more time splitting it. Hopefully the table of contents will help.
- - -
What would a Federal Campaign Voucher program be like? In my first Substack essay I urged support for something called Campaign Finance vouchers. https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelfoxworth/p/achilles-heel-of-control-by-big-campaign This essay gets into the details of how one could be configured and addresses several possible controversies.
Table of Contents
What is a campaign finance voucher (sometimes called a "democracy dollar")?
Who can accept vouchers from voters? Candidates and Organizations
Why should organizations or out of district candidates be eligible to accept vouchers?
How can a candidate or organization use vouchers to get money?
Should there be restrictions on donations to candidates from sources other than vouchers?
Why might a successful voucher program lead to lower cost elections?
1. Summary of the main points
Campaign finance vouchers allow voters to allocate some tax money to support candidates/organizations of their choice for federal elections.
Vouchers would be distributed to registered voters, with options to protect anonymity when assigning them.
Qualified candidates and organizations could receive and use the voucher funds, including for candidates outside the voter's district.
This expands voter influence compared to today's system dominated by wealthy donors and special interests.
Allowing out-of-district voucher use helps counteract the paralysis caused by the fear of being "primaried" in safe seats.
No need to restrict other donation sources if voucher amounts provide sufficient visibility for candidates.
A successful program should lead to lower long-term campaign costs by increasing competitiveness in more districts.
The high 2018-2022 campaign spending reflected a perfect storm of divided government, Trump's threats, and very few truly competitive seats.
Configured as described below, vouchers will empower voters over special interests, free incumbents from donor pressure, and can restore functionality to Congress in a cost-effective manner over time.
[Note: Thanks to Claude.ai for drafting the above, slightly tweaked, summary. I'm impressed with this, my first joust with AI. The essay also benefitted from a whole series of editorial challenges by Claude, some requiring substantive reconsiderations. I'm hoping comments by readers will bless me with an opportunity to strengthen what remains. Vouchers as just that important.]
2. What is a campaign finance voucher (sometimes called a "democracy dollar")?
It's an authorization or certificate that allows a potential voter to indirectly send tax money to political candidates or organizations that the voter prefers. The candidates or organizations can get the money from the government to spend on campaign expenses.
In short, voters use some tax money to support the election of candidates they choose. Put another way, all voters can expand their power to influence politicians by becoming campaign finance donors.
It is not a matching program where the voters need to use their own money. (TOC)
3. Who gets vouchers to donate?
Starting from a list of registered voters, each voter is sent a package of certificates to distribute.
The program could be expanded to give voucher packages to non-voting residents or give packages with extra vouchers to parents/caregivers of non-voting dependents, to, in a sense, let all residents have influence. (TOC)
4. What are vouchers, physically?
In the original Seattle plan they were numbered paper documents that were mailed to registered voters. But that system exposed the voter's identity to the politicians who received the voucher. Instead, it may be better to give voters, by default, the option to hide their identity when they use vouchers to in much the same way we protect mail-in voting.
A typical mail-in ballot for voting has a 3-layer setup:
First, an outer package that is mailed to the voter.
Second, an inner envelope that can be used to mail in the ballot. This inner envelope has the name and address of the voter and a place to sign and date the envelope. That information and signature is used by the processing center to confirm that only one ballot was submitted by the voter.
Third, the ballot itself (with no identification) that is filled out by the voter and put in the inner envelope for mailing.
To support preserving anonymity for the donor, the vouchers could be done much the same way: an outer package, one or more inner envelopes each with name, address, and signature/date block, each containing a single voucher form.
By using multiple inner envelopes, the voter can "hold" some vouchers and submit them "when the time is right".
Each voucher form would have a space to indicate the candidate or organization to receive the voucher, but not the identity of the voter. In order to track if a candidate's voucher came from a local district voter, every voucher form would show the House district of the voter.
The outer package could also contain an insert with information about the candidates for the voter's district. However, it could be difficult to keep such inserts completely accurate, as candidates may drop out or become qualified after the packages are mailed. During the campaign, the media, internet and campaign mailings can try to keep voters updated.
When processing a mail-in ballot, the processing center uses the information on the inner envelope to ensure that the voter is only voting once. In the same way, a voucher processing center would validate submitted vouchers.
In time, it might be better to come up with a system using a virtual form that could be emailed to voters. These could be submitted electronically.
As in the Seattle system, the voucher form itself would be numbered to support tracking its subsequent use to obtain money for a candidate. (TOC)
5. How does a voucher indicate who gets the money?
Every authorized or qualified candidate or organization would have an "Election ID" for a given election. The ID would be assigned by the government's voucher administration.
Each voucher would have a space to enter the "Election ID" of the chosen recipient.
All designations are final. If a candidate or organization drops out or fails to use the voucher, the voucher cannot be used for some other purpose.
Every voucher would be for the full value of the voucher - no splitting a voucher among many recipients. Rules would specify that candidates must spend the money on their own campaigns or not spend it at all. They cannot pass the money to others. If a voter wants to "spread the money around" the way to do that is to give to a political party or advocacy organization instead of a single candidate. (TOC)
6. What elections are addressed by a federal voucher program
The vouchers would permit the voter to give money to candidates for House, Senate and President running in that voter's district or state. They could also be used to support the state's political parties. The program should be designed to allow funds to go to non-party interest or advocacy groups. Or to support candidates outside of the voter's district or state. Of course, there would be no way to supply printed lists of the "Election IDs" of such additional recipients in a voucher package. Some sort of website would be needed to provide that information to voters.
The Seattle program only allowed vouchers to go to local candidates. The reason to expand to parties, groups or non-local candidates will be addressed below.
While a federal voucher program would be for Congress and President, it could later be expanded or modified to allow states to use the system for state or local elections. (TOC)
7. When are vouchers distributed?
The nominating process has proven to be both expensive and crucial (especially with primary elections). It is important that voucher money be made available when needed for primaries. Ideally, vouchers should be released in two or three stages to reflect the election calendar of the state. This would encourage voters to donate during the nomination process.
However, in the absence of a virtual distribution system, the mechanics of a totally paper mail-in system might make a single mailed package early in the season the only practical distribution technique. With that admittedly less flexible technique, voters can "hold" some of their vouchers to use during later stages of the election. (TOC)
8. Who can accept vouchers from voters?
Both candidates and organizations.
Candidates:
The official committees of qualified candidates can accept vouchers and use the money for designated election purposes. As indicated, the program should be designed to allow voters to designate candidates from outside districts or states.
To accept vouchers, a candidate must be qualified by the state to be on a primary or general ballot or must qualify under the state's rule to allow their write-in votes to be tallied. (Voucher qualification for write-in candidates would be difficult, perhaps impossible, in states such as South Carolina that lack write-in qualification rules.) To be on a ballot, states require candidates to demonstrate some measure of local popular support. States usually measure this in by requiring candidates to gather signatures on election petitions. Some require modest filing fees, especially for primary elections.
Should that be enough to allow voucher money to flow to that candidate? The Seattle system goes further and requires that the candidates show that they have some local financial support. This has been described as showing "viability." Seattle candidates must raise small amounts (at least $10) from each of a tiny percentage of the district residents. One analysis of the concept suggested that in a national program this percentage could be as little as one tenth of one percent of a district's registered voters (a far smaller percentage than commonly required for signatures). But is such a small-donation test necessary to start a voucher program? The argument for it seems to be based on suspicion that "big donors" could "game" the program by sponsoring non-viable candidates with buckets of outside money. Thereby leaving less money for stronger candidates. It seems unnecessary. Given the additional administration required to implement this requirement (perhaps requiring state participation), this requirement could kill the program before it started merely to defend against an unproven threat.
The Seattle program further specifies that candidate must have a declared opponent to be eligible. It is hard to imagine a Congressional seat being unopposed. In any case it seems better to leave such subtilties to the voucher donors.
Organizations:
Organizations that agree to follow the rules, such as political parties or interest groups, can participate by either acting as intermediaries to help candidates get vouchers or by using the money directly for designated election purposes. Many voters might prefer the simplicity of this option, in the same way they now "vote the party line."
Like candidates, organizations must be "qualified" to operate in this capacity. The obvious restriction would be that they be "public" non-profits (according to IRS rules) that get their funding largely via small donations (as distinct from "private" non-profits that get their funding from a few large donors). There might be other requirements, such as showing that they have been operating for a minimum period of time and have suitable administrative structures to keep track of activities.
Organizations would have three options for use of the submitted vouchers: pass some to candidates (not necessarily in the voter's district), pass some to other organizations, or use them to fund the organization's own election related activities.
If the organization passed vouchers along to candidates and got the vouchers directly from voters (see the section below on options for delivery), the organization could take preference suggestions as to which candidates to assign the vouchers to. But, ultimately, the organization would have the responsibility to credit candidates of its choosing. In other words, once a voucher is provided to an organization, the voter no longer controls where or how it is used.
Organizations can utilize the funds themselves. They can use the money for election related activities (such as advertising or get-out-the-vote) as long as they can prove that they used the funds in conformity with the FEC spending rules.
Like an individual voter, the organization can "hold" vouchers. If the system is designed to include interest or advocacy groups, it can "bundle" vouchers and pass them on to another (second) organization. To be suitably visible, there could be restrictions to avoid vouchers being passed from a second organization to a third.
Unlike a voter, an organization that passed vouchers to candidates or other organizations would need to publicly document where they sent the vouchers.
In any case, the organization would use the computer system to assign vouchers to the ultimate recipient candidates or to themselves. If a voucher was to be held for later use, the organization would need to notify the computer system that they had the voucher in hand but not committed. (TOC)
9. Why should organizations or out of district candidates be eligible to accept vouchers?
As indicated above, the district/state where the candidate is running need not be the same district/state where the voter can vote. Why?
The purpose of vouchers is to improve responsiveness by elected officials to local desires.
For many reasons, not least our primitive election system based on expensive first-past-the-post primaries, politicians chasing campaign finance money have led us into almost 4 decades of steadily increasing governmental disfunction. Highlighted by the Great Recession, economic distress has left us with severe political division. The vast majority of districts have become "safe" (uncompetitive) for one party. This has led to gridlock in Congress with a collapse of compromise and bipartisan governing. Independent advocacy by members for their district's interests has been squeezed out by the needs of the two big parties to achieve a majority. Both houses were designed to operate with "committees". Legislators were assigned membership in one or two committees and expected to become expert on that subject matter. And then draft the legislation or supervise activity on those topics. That system has collapsed. The little legislation that emerges is written by the leaders and their staff. The only role of most members is to raise campaign money and vote as their leader's command.
This bad situation can be improved by vouchers in several ways.
First, safe seats will not disappear. Such "safety" reflects perennial factors such as population and industry. In a "safe" district, voters holding minority opinions may prefer to use their voucher-money to help elect viable candidates in other districts or states in the hope their preferences will prevail because of wins in those other districts. In time, as local competitiveness improves, this option should become less attractive. In any case, from the voter's perspective, freedom to deploy vouchers outside the district makes vouchers just as useful for influencing political events as the "money" of their wealthier neighbors.
While party and advocacy organizations would be expected to "spend" most of their voucher money by passing vouchers to qualified candidates, a broad-based organization, like a party, can spend voucher funds on campaigning activities that cover broad topics or multiple districts. Our current system allows candidates to spend money on services by organizations that provide messaging support. It is important to recognize that this kind of "issue" expense, not directly tied to a single candidate, is a large and growing part of campaign spending. If voters were denied the option to use their vouchers for this purpose, they would essentially be denied the power that rich people have when they use their own money.
In their 2015 book "Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail," political scientists Raymond La Raga & Brian Schaffner describe how our miss-conceived campaign finance laws have heavily contributed to creating political division. [This book is available as a free PDF download.] Motivated almost exclusively by the common perceived risk of "corruption," these laws redirect funds away from relatively open and visible actors (candidates and political parties) that are focused on engaging the middle to win general elections. That has effectively squeezed that money into the hands of less visible "interest groups," completely unaccountable "Dark Money" bundlers using Super-PACs. As described above, that has generated in legislators a strong fear of "being primaried." That fear discourages bipartisanship and compromise and encourages extreme voting behavior as a defense mechanism. Allowing vouchers to be directed to parties, including third and fourth parties, and perhaps interest groups whose spending can be monitored, this disastrous tendency can be fought.
Allowing voucher donations to out-of-district candidates or organizations can help in additional ways.
Second, vouchers provide a fund-raising base that can be called on by an incumbent member if facing primary or general competition. While incumbents in "safe seats" ordinarily need little campaign money, knowing their local voters had vouchers to use would effectively dampen the "fear of being primaried" by outside interest groups swooping in with unusual barrels of money to support a more ideologically extreme primary candidate. Both Lee Drutman and Robert Boatright discuss the fact that while such "being primaried" events are quite rare and usually unsuccessful, fear of them looms large in the minds of incumbents. And that fear has been shown to affect the in-office behavior of safe seat incumbents. Without that fear, incumbents are likely to be more bipartisan and moderate. Voters outside the district who learn of "responsible" stances or who appreciate "expertise" shown by incumbents can use their vouchers to reward such behavior.
Third, much of the current spending is for the few highly competitive seats. With vouchers roughly doubling the available funds, parties would be less desperate, as they are now, to force the vast majority of legislators to spend virtually all their time raising funds to build war chests to fight the battles for the few competitive seats. Instead, legislators could use their time legislating or communicating with constituents.
Fourth, when fund-raising is needed, the legislator can turn to encouraging local voters to donate their vouchers instead of needing to focus on the wealthiest donors or donors outside their district. This should cause a shift in policy towards the poor and middle of their local electorate.
Fifth, competition for office should increase in both primary and general elections. Incumbents would need to be on alert to the emergence of "shoestring" candidates using vouchers who are more aligned with district preferences. (TOC)
10. How would recipients get vouchers from voters?
NOTE: The description here uses the concept, described above, of voters getting a 3-level voucher delivery package with an outer envelope, inner envelopes and voucher forms. Other voucher delivery approaches might be different. There seem to be two options with this concept.
Option 1: Voters deliver inner envelopes to an official processing center. This could be in person or by mail (or, eventually, virtually).
The center staff would check the submitted inner envelopes against the government computer system to avoid double counting and defend the process against counterfeit. Then process the extracted vouchers to read the "Election IDs" and credit the candidate or organization. And preserve the vouchers to support auditing. By default, this would keep the voter anonymous as far as the candidate or organization (or anyone) could see.
Option 2: Deliver inner envelopes directly to the candidate or organization staff, perhaps via a canvasser. This could be in person or by mail (or, eventually, virtually).
The candidate would process the voucher the same way as above. To minimize confusion and counterfeiting, organizations would need to process inner envelopes promptly.
This method allows the candidate or organization to identify the donor. Some voters would prefer to let the candidate know that they were active supporters. That is an option that private donors always have. By showing that they supported the candidate with voucher funds, voters may effectively add weight to any policy preferences they communicate to the candidate or organization. Also, the candidate's staff might have an opportunity to learn (such as with a survey) more about what motivates certain voters to donate. (TOC)
11. How would abuse be prevented?
Private donors are using their own money, whereas with vouchers the voter is using government tax money. With direct delivery to candidates, there becomes the possibility of "voucher buying" and/or attempts by parties or organizations to coerce voters to "prove" that they supported the party's candidates.
Coercive actions or "voucher-buying" would be illegal. Given the difficulty keeping such behavior hidden, this does not seem like a serious threat. The government could temporarily shut off direct delivery (Option 2) if it found abuse to be a problem. (TOC)
12. Must a voucher be accepted and used?
If a voucher is offered to a candidate (directly, or indirectly) it cannot be turned down by the candidate and transferred to a different candidate or organization. Instead, the processing center can be notified that the voucher has been declined. At that point the voucher is dead.
Candidates who are no longer eligible or do not want more vouchers can notify the processing center and it will not accept the vouchers for processing for those candidates. (Note: An advantage of online virtual voucher submission would be that voters would know immediately of such a status and could change their assignment.)
If a voucher is received, the candidate is not required to seek the money. (TOC)
13. How much would each voucher be worth?
The vouchers need to be worth enough to do the job; we want to break the deadlock in Congress. A possible initial target would be to match what was donated privately in the previous election.
The most important part is estimating the amount of private donations. It is probably easier to estimate spending than donations (much of which will always be hidden). The Open Secrets organization seems to be doing a reasonable job of estimating spending.
That requires an estimate of how many voters will use the certificates and how promptly they will use them. Seattle found that it took a little while for people to get used to the idea. The number of vouchers that got used increased from one election to the next.
With estimates made of the number that would be used and the amount of private donations, simple division of the latter by the former will yield an amount per voucher. If spending in 2024 was $12 billion for Congress and $5 billion for President, that would be about $12 billion for 2026. If we sent out 160 million voucher packages and estimated 80 million (50%) would be used, that would be $12 billion / 80 million or $150 a package.
Armed with such estimates, the law would make a commitment to always update the budget allocation to reflect voucher usage and estimates of private spending as the amounts change from one election cycle to the next.
A voucher program should eventually see its cost begin to shrink as the current high level of campaign spending shrinks. This idea is discussed below in Section 17. (TOC)
14. How can a candidate or organization use vouchers to get money?
In Seattle, the small program simply took in the vouchers and immediately disbursed the money to the candidates. Such a simple process is unlikely to be viable on a national scale. The biggest issue is gauging the risk of misjudging the candidates or organizations when dealing with fairly large sums of money.
The safest way to do this would be for candidates to use the vouchers as collateral to get bank loans. Until the voucher is "closed" by reimbursement from the federal government, the candidate owes the money to the bank, not the Federal voucher program. The banker is assuming a risk. The candidate could fail to obey the rules by making expenditures that are judged to be unqualified under FEC rules. If so, the candidate and any co-signers may prove unable to repay the loans out of their own funds. The federal program is not equipped to make these kinds of assessments about default risk associated with individuals - that is what bankers do to earn income from fees.
If the loan proceeds are used on legitimate campaign expenses, the loans would be fully paid off by the government. After verifying and submitting the documentation submitted by the candidate, the bank would submit the documentation to the government and the government would pay the bank the loan, plus interest and administration fees. Independent audits would check this material.
When a candidate attempts to use a voucher as collateral to obtain a loan, the bank must notify the voucher processing center of that voucher's status and any other significant events. (TOC)
15. What are the basic rules?
The money must be used for legitimate campaign expenses, as defined by the FEC.
Candidates must be transparent about how they spent the money.
To give the bank and the government time to monitor progress and insist on corrective action, candidates must submit documentation promptly as the campaign progresses.
The FEC requires regular reports from candidates on their fundraising and spending, including the amounts raised via voucher loans. The voucher computer system will keep public the current voucher totals, including how many are assigned to each candidate (regardless of loan status), held for disposition by an organization and committed by an organization for its own use.
It will be important, especially in the most competitive contests where outside spending dominates, to show what percentage of totals for a candidate came as directed donations from voters in his own district or state. (TOC)
16. Should there be restrictions on donations to candidates from sources other than vouchers?
Note: this section is critical and will be controversial.
We could require candidates who wanted to accept vouchers to adopt restrictions on how much money they could gather from other non-voucher donors. The Seattle program did that. This reflects popular belief, shown in many campaign finance laws, that the primary issue is "corruption of politicians." This essay argues, of course, that the real problem is insufficient campaign funds coming from voters. Seattle's satisfying results from a modest investment (a total of $3 million spread out over 10 years) supports that. Also, Seattle's program was an "experiment." Its advocates arguably needed to address popular focus on "corruption" to get the program started.
But for a national program, donation restrictions pose several major problems.
First, while the US Supreme Court accepted such restrictions in its review of the Seattle program, it might not accept them for a federal program.
Second, while it may sound good to say that a candidate is running by only using small donations, in our current divided nation with fewer than 30 competitive House seats, every competitive primary or general contest attracts millions of dollars of outside contributions. That includes money from big donors and corporations and massive PACs and Super-PACs. Vouchers donated by voters will provide not just money but important feedback to the candidates about those voters. If accepting outside money prevented candidates from participating in the voucher program, some would be forced to avoid vouchers. And, by doing so, be forced into the arms of the big donors. Those candidates would lose a vital source of information about the desires of their local voters. In the presidential election of Barack Obama, the restriction on outside donations meant that the public funding was simply not used. With vouchers, the voters have an important voice. Without them, that voice is muffled. In that case, only the outside interests and the rich will have a voice.
It is fundamentally "penny-wise and pound-foolish" to focus on combating big donors instead of strengthening local voter donations. In the end, the donors are simply trying to influence policy. To reach this goal, their money can help elect someone. But their money also subtly influences the policy positions of incumbents.
On the first point, using money to "help elect someone", voter's votes are not widgets. There are only so many votes to be had. Once the candidates' messages are out there repeating the messages will not increase "sales." Some fear massive spending by corporations or extremely wealthy voters who can seemingly spend without limit. There is very little evidence that extra spending on advertising will shift votes once there is sufficient coverage of the topics. Voters need to hear the basic arguments and candidates need to be seen. "Sufficient" is the goal. Currently, in most "safe" seats, there is virtually no money available to make the minority visible. Vouchers directly address that lack.
That leaves the second goal: influencing the incumbents. Big donors' true power comes not in the few hugely expensive "competitive" races where tens or hundreds of millions are being spent. No, the true power of big donors lies in their perceived ability to swoop in on primary contests where the incumbent has little ability to fight back. Our Congress has become paralyzed by the "being primaried" con. In this, donors focused on removing legislators they regard as insufficiently extreme, threaten to (and occasionally do) pay to support primary challengers who will do their bidding. This trick only works because the incumbent of a "safe seat" has not needed much campaign funds in the past and has little local financial support other than local business interests. Feeling vulnerable, incumbents fear straying from "the party line" on policy votes even if their own district would benefit from a compromise vote. While few legislators actually lose in primary contests, and when they do it is not clear that outside money was the cause, Lee Drutman documents the effect of this "fear". In https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/what-we-know-about-congressional-primaries-and-congressional-primary-reform/are-primaries-a-problem/ he poses and supports the following hypothesis "Incumbent members of Congress fear a primary challenge, and adjust to avoid one." Robert Boatright, in his 2015 book, "Getting Primaried," makes similar points about the rarity of primary defeats due to "ideology" but the importance of "fear" engendered by some well-funded "issue groups."
A voucher program would provide a substantial local financial base for any incumbent who felt his district would benefit from a compromise policy position. Under the current system, without vouchers, his freedom to advocate for such a policy is heavily constrained. In a party system, "party discipline" will always be important on key votes. Nevertheless, freed from constant worry about campaign funding, internal debates and position development can return to being part of a legislator's job again.
Perspective is important. Keep in mind that current donors are exercising their control by spending a tiny percentage of the nation's GDP. Given that we are only talking about $10 billion in 2022 (and probably something comparable in 2024), if we have sufficient visibility about spending and the amounts from vouchers are large enough to ensure the candidates can be seen and heard, I see no reason to have restrictions on what other money candidates can get.
The candidates can voluntarily pledge to restrict donations from large donors. There could even be two kinds of voucher-eligible candidates: candidates who pledge to restrict themselves and candidates who don't. That should be enough. People who avoid the pledge are going to label themselves negatively in the eyes of the public. That will affect their attractiveness to voucher users and, ultimately, when in the voting booth.
I argue that restrictions on outside donations are not needed. The system will work to bring incumbents back in line with voter preferences as long as "sufficient" money is available in the form of vouchers. (TOC)
17. Why might a successful voucher program lead to lower cost elections?
About $10 billion was spent on the US 2022 midterm election campaign. In 2019 only about $60 million was spent on the UK's last general election. The United Kingdom's population is about 20% of the US, yet they spent less than 1% of what the US spent. There are restrictions on spending in the UK that drive down their costs. Such restrictions are not permitted in the US, and arguably not needed. Still, noting this dramatic difference leads to the question: are the current spending levels in the US "normal" or do they reflect a special case?
The US campaign spending on Congress in 2018, 2020 and 2022 reflects a specific historical context. That context motivated people and organizations to increase their spending dramatically over what had been steadily increasing but at a much less rapid pace from the 1990s until 2016.
In the 1990s, as described in my first essay, the shift to primaries meant both parties emphasized the wishes of campaign finance donors. That led to a number of policy initiatives, especially tax changes, that advantaged those wealthy enough to be donors. Thereby significantly widening the wealth gap. And financial special interest donations to both parties led to relaxation of bank regulation. That led to the 2008 Great Recession. On the other hand, absence of donations led to relative neglect of issues of importance to those who were not donors. Issues such as the fall in manufacturing employment outside of our major urban centers. Or, as pensions disappeared, the failure to find a retirement saving system suitable for the 80% of US workers ill-served by 401(k) plans.
The resulting public unhappiness led to a population divided by location, Trump's election and his threats to "normal" patterns of governing.
With
a constitutional structure that encourages divided government (one that only works well when all three elected parts are in the hands of the same party, a structure that has been rejected as unworkable by most democracies; we have been divided in this sense for 21 of the last 33 years),
and Trump's possible re-election as "dictator" on everyone's mind,
and both chambers of Congress split almost evenly into groups of "safe seats",
the "stakes" have become sky high on each member of a tiny set of "competitive" seats.
That pattern will continue in 2024.
It cannot continue without end, since we currently have an unworkable government that is not nimble enough to avoid disaster. Such as another 2008-style banking crisis.
With a campaign finance voucher program, we have a chance to break this pattern. No other has been proposed. The hysteria over each competitive seat, with each having hundred-million-dollar price tags, should drop down to something reasonable as more seats become competitive. While our awkward divided-government constitution will continue to hobble us, at least we have a chance to recover. With that, campaign finance costs (and vouchers) should drop off dramatically.
If change can come quickly enough to allow good policies to emerge before the next crisis sinks us. (TOC)
Thank you for this well thought out analysis that adds a way to balance political spending by wealthy donors vs the majority of the population. The spending craze by the wealthy caused by Citizens United is ruining our country. If we can not currently rid ourselves of CU then I would definitely be a big supporter of this model.