Since 2000, China has emerged as Africa’s largest trading partner and a major source of investment finance as well. Large numbers of Chinese workers and entrepreneurs have moved to Africa in recent years, with estimates running as high as one million. China’s engagement with Africa has no doubt led to faster growth and poverty reduction on the continent. It is also relatively popular: In attitude surveys, 70 percent of African respondents have a positive view of China, higher than percentages in Asia, the Americas, or Europe.

While China’s deepening engagement with Africa has largely been associated with better economic performance, its involvement is not without controversy. This is particularly true in the West, as typical headlines portray an exploitive relationship: “Into Africa: China’s Wild Rush,” “China in Africa: Investment or Exploitation?,” and “Clinton warns against ‘new colonialism’ in Africa.” 

My forthcoming study, "China’s Engagement with Africa: From Natural Resources to Human Resources," aims to objectively assess this important new development in the world. It has six main findings:

1. First, on the scale of China’s activities in Africa: The media often portrays China’s involvement as enormous, potentially overwhelming the continent. According to data from China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the stock of Chinese direct investment in Africa was $32 billion at the end of 2014. This represents less than 5 percent of the total stock of foreign investment on the continent. Stocks naturally change slowly. But the "World Investment Report 2015" similarly finds that China’s share of inward direct investment flows to Africa during 2013 and 2014 was only 4.4 percent of the total. Of course, direct investment is not the only form of foreign financing. The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank have also made large loans in Africa, mostly to fund infrastructure projects. In recent years, China has provided about one-sixth of the external infrastructure financing for Africa. In short, Chinese financing is substantial enough to contribute meaningfully to African investment and growth, but the notion that China has provided an overwhelming amount of finance and is buying up the whole continent is inaccurate.

2. The second main finding from the study concerns China’s direct investment and governance. China has drawn attention by making large resource-related investments in countries with poor governance indicators, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Sudan. These deals are certainly part of the picture when it comes to China’s engagement with Africa. But the more general relationship between Chinese direct investment and recipients’ governance environments is different. After controlling for market size and natural resource wealth, total foreign direct investment is highly correlated with measures of property rights and rule of law, as one might expect. This is true both globally and within the African continent. China’s outward direct investment, on the other hand, is uncorrelated with measures of property rights and the rule of law after controlling for market size and natural resource wealth. In this sense, Chinese investment is indifferent to the governance environment in a particular country. While China has investments in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Sudan, those are balanced by investments in African countries that have relatively good governance environments. South Africa, for instance, is the foremost recipient of Chinese investment. Furthermore, some of the big resource deals in poor governance environments are not working out well, so Chinese state enterprises may well rethink their approach in the future.

3. A third main finding emerges from examining MOFCOM’s registry of Chinese firms investing in Africa. In the aggregate data on Chinese investment in different countries, the big state enterprise deals naturally play an outsized role. MOFCOM’s database on Chinese firms investing in Africa, on the other hand, provides a snapshot of what small- and medium-sized Chinese firms—most of which are private—are doing in Africa. Unlike the big state-owned enterprise investments, these firms are not focused on natural resource extraction. The largest area for investment is service sectors, with significant investment in manufacturing as well. Many African economies welcome this Chinese investment in manufacturing and services.

4. The fourth finding relates to infrastructure finance. In recent years infrastructure financing has expanded and helped many African countries begin to rectify infrastructure deficiencies. Africa has been receiving about $30 billion per year in external finance for infrastructure, of which China provides one-sixth. Chinese financing is a useful complement to other sources, particularly as traditional finance from multilateral development banks and bilateral donors is concentrated on water supply and sanitation. Likewise, private participation in infrastructure is primarily aimed at telecommunications. China has filled a niche by focusing on transportation and power.

   Chinese financing of infrastructure has also enabled Chinese construction companies to gain a firm foothold on the continent. Evidence suggests that Chinese companies have become highly competitive, crowding out African construction companies. This is an area where a trade-off seems to exist between, on the one hand, getting projects completed quickly and cheaply and, on the other, facilitating the long-term development of a local construction industry.

5. This point leads to the fifth finding of the study. There are a lot of Chinese workers in Africa; the total is disproportionately high when compared to the amount of financing that China has provided and compared to migrants from other continents. This is a tentative conclusion because the data on this issue are particular weak. But estimates of Chinese migrants in Africa exceed one million. Many migrants initially move to Africa as workers on Chinese projects in infrastructure and mining and then, perceiving good economic opportunities, stay on. Similar to the dilemma confronting the continent’s construction industry, African countries face a tradeoff here: Chinese workers bring skills and entrepreneurship, but their large numbers limit African workers’ opportunities for jobs and training. The popular notion that Chinese companies only employ Chinese workers is not accurate, but the overall number of Chinese workers in Africa is large. Africa may want to take a page from China’s playbook and limit the ability of foreign investors to bring in workers, forcing them to train local labor instead.

The popular notion that Chinese companies only employ Chinese workers is not accurate, but the overall number of Chinese workers in Africa is large.

6. A final important finding of the study is that the foundation for the Africa-China economic relationship is shifting. China’s involvement in Africa stretches back decades, but the economic relationship accelerated after 2000, when China’s growth model became especially resource-intensive. It made sense for resource-poor China to import natural resources from Africa and to export manufactures in return.

These patterns of trade and investment are now likely to gradually shift in response to changing demographics. The working-age population in China has peaked and will shrink over the coming decades. This has contributed to a tightening of the labor market and an increase in wages, which benefits Chinese people. Household income and consumption are also rising. Compared to past trends, China’s changing pattern of growth is less resource-intensive, so China’s needs for energy and minerals are relatively muted. At the same time, China is likely to be a steady supplier of foreign investment to other countries, and part of that will involve moving manufacturing value chains to lower-wage locations.

Africa’s demographics are moving in the opposite direction. In fact, they resemble China’s at the beginning of its economic reform 35 years ago. About half of Africa’s population is below the age of 20, which means the working-age population will surge over the next 20 years, and will probably continue growing until the middle of the century or later. Roughly speaking, Africa needs to create about 20 million jobs per year to employ its expanding workforce. Twenty years from now, it will need to create 30 million jobs per year. Africa’s demographics present both an opportunity and a challenge. It is unrealistic to expect the China-Africa economic relationship to change overnight. Nor would it be reasonable to expect large volumes of Chinese manufacturing to move to the continent in the near future; it would be more natural for value chains to migrate from China to nearby locations such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. But if even small amounts of manufacturing shift, this could make a significant difference for African economies, which are starting out with an extremely low base of industrialization. And it is useful to have a long-term vision that an economic relationship that started out very much centered on natural resources should shift over time to a greater focus on human resources.

For more on China’s engagement in Africa, check out the Brookings event hosted by the John L. Thornton China Center and the Africa Growth Initiative this Wednesday, July 13, at 3:30pm. 

There is a lively debate today over whether or not campaign finance reforms have weakened the role of political parties in campaigns. This seems an odd argument in an era of historically high levels of party loyalty — on roll calls in Congress and voting in the electorate. Are parties too strong and unified or too weak and fragmented? Have they been marginalized in the financing of elections or is their role at least as strong as it has ever been? Does the party role in campaign finance (weak or strong) materially shape the capacity to govern?

In addition, the increasing involvement in presidential and congressional campaigns of large donors – especially through Super PACs and politically-active nonprofit organizations – has raised serious concerns about whether the super-wealthy are buying American democracy. Ideologically-based outside groups financed by wealthy donors appear to be sharpening partisan differences and resisting efforts to forge agreement across parties. Many reformers have advocated steps to increase the number of small donors to balance the influence of the wealthy. But some scholars have found evidence suggesting that small donors are more polarizing than large donors. Can that be true? If so, are there channels other than the ideological positioning of the parties through which small donors might play a more constructive role in our democracy?

In this paper, Thomas Mann and Anthony Corrado attempt to shed light on both of these disputed features of our campaign finance system and then assess whether campaign finance reform offers promise for reducing polarization and strengthening American democracy. They conclude that not only is campaign finance reform a weak tool for depolarizing American political parties, but some break in the party wars is probably a prerequisite to any serious pushback to the broader deregulation of campaign finance now underway.

Downloads

• Download the paper

The Supreme Court’s recent McCutcheon decision has reinvigorated the discussion on how campaign finance affects American democracy. Seeking to dissect the complex relationship between political parties, partisan polarization, and campaign finance, Tom Mann and Anthony Corrado’s new paper on Party Polarization and Campaign Finance reviews the landscape of hard and soft money in federal elections and asks whether campaign finance reform can abate polarization and strengthen governing capacity in the United States. The paper tackles two popular contentions within the campaign finance debate: First, has campaign finance reform altered the role of political parties as election financiers and therefore undermined deal making and pragmatism? Second, would a change in the composition of small and large individual donors decrease polarization in the parties?

The Role of Political Parties in Campaign Finance

Political parties have witnessed a number of shifts in their campaign finance role, including McCain-Feingold’s ban on party soft money in 2002. This has led many to ask if the breakdown in compromise and governance and the rise of polarization has come about because parties have lost the power to finance elections. To assess that claim, the authors track the amount of money crossing national and state party books as an indicator of party strength. The empirical evidence shows no significant decrease in party strength post 2002 and holds that “both parties have compensated for the loss of soft money with hard money receipts.” In fact, the parties have upped their spending on congressional candidates more than six-fold since 1980. Despite the ban on soft money, the parties remain major players in federal elections.

Large and Small Donors in National Campaigns

Mann and Corrado turn to non-party money and survey the universe of individual donors to evaluate “whether small, large or mega-donors are most likely to fuel or diminish the polarization that increasingly defines the political landscape.” The authors map the size and shape of individual giving and confront the concern that Super PACs, politically active nonprofits, and the super-wealthy are buying out American democracy. They ask: would a healthier mix of small and large donors reduce radicalization and balance out asymmetric polarization between the parties? The evidence suggests that increasing the role of small donors would have little effect on partisan polarization in either direction because small donors tend to be highly polarized. Although Mann and Corrado note that a healthier mix would champion democratic ideals like civic participation and equality of voice.

Taking both points together, Mann and Corrado find that campaign finance reform is insufficient for depolarizing the parties and improving governing capacity. They argue forcefully that polarization emerges from a broader political and partisan problem. Ultimately, they assert that, “some break in the party wars is probably a prerequisite to any serious pushback to the broader deregulation of campaign finance now underway.”

Click to read Mann and Corrado’s full paper, Party Polarization and Campaign Finance.

Tom Mann and Anthony Corrado recently argued that campaign finance reform will likely have little effect on political polarization. Their new paper has sparked a host of debate over campaign finance, the strength of parties, and the ideological motivations of donors. Today, the Monkey Cage blog hosted Mann and Corrado’s response to a critique from Ray LaRaja and Brian Schaffner.

LaRaja and Schaffner argue that pumping more funding to parties and changing the rules to facilitate that practice will provide a respite from polarization; to argue their point, they examine polarization at the state legislative level. In their response, Mann and Corrado argue that the critique is off point, noting that “no causal link to campaign finance laws (and polarization) is demonstrated.” Ultimately, Mann and Corrado explain: “The link between party financial practices and regulatory regimes is often a matter of strategy than law, and the evidence offered in their (LaRaja and Schaffner) response certainly falls well short of making a case that greater party resources would reduce the polarization that undermines the capacity to govern.”

For more on this debate:

Read Mann and Corrado’s paper, “Party Polarization and Campaign Finance”

Read LaRaja and Schaffner’s critique, “Want to reduce polarization? Give Parties Money”

Read Mann and Corrado’s response, “Don’t expect campaign finance reform to reduce polarization”

And check out some other great research on Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog

One of the fundamental arguments in the “Political Realism” debate is whether or not strong political parties could make government work better. One way to assess party strength is to look at how much money parties can raise and spend.

In this vein, political scientists Ray LaRaja and Brian Schaffner have claimed that removing limits on party funding activity would make politics less polarized. I’ve been skeptical of this claim. In fact, in a short analysis, I found that the opposite is more likely the case—that states with limits on party fundraising appear to be less polarized, though I cautioned against inferring too much from this pattern.

LaRaja and Schaffner have now responded and previewed their forthcoming book, Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail, which will be out this fall from the University of Michigan Press. So, a response to their response is now in order.

I’ll start by granting a point of agreement: LaRaja and Schaffner note that I didn’t re-produce their analysis. I didn’t do this because, based on what they’ve written, it’s not clear exactly which states they consider to be “Parties Unlimited” and “Parties Limited” states. So, until they make their list public, it will be impossible to conduct a precise replication of their analysis.

The good news is they’ve promised to make their data public in the future. As they write in their recent post, “we will be posting all the data necessary to replicate (and challenge) our results upon publication of our book this fall, and we look forward to seeing what others find when they dig into the data.” They also note in their analysis that “11 states changed their laws on party limits during the period of our study (1993-2012).” Assembling this list, they note, was “possibly the most painstaking work we did on this book.” For now, their list of changes remains a well-kept secret, though the changes appear to be driving their analysis. So it will be good when all the relevant data and categorization choices are clear and on the table.

A lot depends on which states fall into which categories. But, there is a more fundamental question: does it make sense to dichotomize states into “Parties Unlimited” and “Parties Limited” states? States with limits vary considerably. Some states limit the money into parties, but allow unlimited flows to candidates; some states allow unlimited money into parties, but limit money from parties to candidates. Some limits are high, some are low. Some have exceptions for party-building activities. Rules vary between primary and general elections, as well.

Consider California. There are limits on how much parties can raise from individuals, but those limits are quite high (they are now at $35,200), and also only cover the party accounts that go to state candidates (so, for example, ballot measures are exempt or general party activities are exempted). California also has no limits on how much parties can transfer to candidates. So should California be a “limits” or “no limits” state? California also has the most polarized legislature, as measured by the distance between party medians. Depending on how you choose to classify states, you can get very different results, especially when you are only working with 20 states (LaRaja and Schaffner limit their claims to the 20 states with the most professionalized legislatures, as per the Squire Index).

LaRaja and Schaffner’s response presents a time series regression model to “calculate the predicted level of polarization over time in a state that limited party fundraising … and spending to on where those limits were removed.” But if states that removed limits became less polarized following the removal of those limits, why not tell us what those states were, and report the actual polarization trends in the states? Put another way: Why rely on model predictions when there are real world data? Grounding this debate in the trajectories of actual states would lend some realism to the claims. Then we could debate examples.

For example, as Thomas Mann and E.J. Dionne note in a recent Brookings paper, two of the states with no limits are Texas and North Carolina. As Mann and Dionne write, “The behavior of their legislatures in recent years cannot, on any plausible definition, be described as 'moderate.'” However, neither Texas nor North Carolina shows up as excessively polarized when polarization is merely a measure of voting patterns. Moreover, if parties are so pragmatic, why did the North Carolina Republican Party (which could raise and spend unlimited sums of money) fail to stop a takeover by multi-millionaire right-wing extremist Art Pope?

This takes us to questions of how party leaders actually behave. LaRaja and Shaffner show evidence in their response that parties give more money to moderate incumbents than to extreme incumbents. This should not be surprising. Presumably, moderate incumbents are more likely to be in competitive races, since moderates are more likely to represent competitive districts.

The more relevant question is what types of candidates parties recruit. Thankfully, we have answers to this courtesy of excellent work by David Broockman, Nicholas Carnes, Melody Crowder-Meyer, and Christopher Skovron, who surveyed 6,000 county-level political party leaders. They found that, “party leaders…use their influence to discourage moderates from seeking office: they strongly prefer candidates at least as ideologically polarized as their median party member. Republican party leaders show this preference especially.”

Their findings also reinforce something that should be apparent to students of polarization—that polarization is asymmetric. Republicans have moved far to the right. Democrats have mostly stayed in place. Let me quote Broockman et al.’s paper at further length, because the findings are extremely relevant to this debate:

“Republicans are much more likely to, unprompted, mention ideology as an important factor for candidates. Our evidence suggests that not only do Republicans care more about ideology, it is also readily accessible when they think of candidate recruitment. It seems likely, then, that Republicans are much more active in recruiting ideologically polarized candidates than Democrats are.”

“Democratic chairs are most inclined to support candidates who are middle-of-the-road or slightly left with respect to the party, while Republicans prefer candidates who espouse an ideology matching or more conservative than their party. In fact, while Democratic chairs are less likely to support very liberal candidates than those nearer to their party average, Republican chairs seem to give very conservative primary candidates the same boost that Democrats give to moderates.”

This does suggest that perhaps giving parties more money and therefore more control over candidates would produce moderation in blue states, but exacerbate polarization in red states. Unfortunately, there is nothing in LaRaja and Schaffner’s analysis that addresses this possibility.

The importance of recruitment also suggests that what we really want to know is who controls the actual recruitment mechanisms in the first place. It’s possible that states with limits might have strong party recruitment mechanisms. If what we really care about is the strength of party machines, why not try to measure that more directly?

LaRaja and Schaffner seem to envision parties being run by hard-headed pragmatists who can determine outcomes with money alone. They seem to assume that if parties can get billionaires to fund them, this will enable party leaders to support more moderate candidates. They seem to ignore that the billionaires may have a few ideas of their own about how they think government should be run (see, e.g. North Carolina).

This gets to a final point, about whether we ought to care if parties rely on small or large donors. LaRaja and Schaffner dismiss the case for small donors, noting that: “the endless romanticizing of small donors as being emblematic of American voters has no empirical grounding.” They go on to note that the ideological distribution of small donors and the ideological distribution of large donors “are nearly identical,” and therefore, “[p]utting more emphasis on ideological small donors may even make our politics worse as politicians streamline their messages to cater to this minority of individuals with more extreme views.”

Let’s grant that large and small donors have the same ideological distribution. If there is no difference, then there’s no reason to think that relying more on small donors would make politics any more extreme. However, since there are many more small donors than there are large donors, a small-donor matching system would allow less extreme candidates the ability to seek out less extreme donors from a larger population of potential donors. We know large donors are polarized, so relying more heavily on them doesn’t give parties much room to moderate. Of course, this presumes that large donors want to shape party positions. But that seems a safe bet.

There are also good (small-d) democratic reasons to support small-donor programs: they bring more participants into the political process; they orient politicians to think differently about whom they represent, and they probably make politics an attractive profession for a broader set of potential candidates. I’d even trade off some polarization for a small donor system. Fortunately, based on their data, it doesn’t appear that I’d even have to.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, polarization is a function of many, many things, and it’s hard to imagine how changing limits on what parties can raise and spend would have much of an influence given the many other factors. Consider this thoughtful systems map developed by the Hewlett Foundation to analyze American politics as a system: it describes multiple factors that might influence levels of polarization. Systems thinking warns us to be careful of putting too much focus on a single point of leverage without thinking about the larger systems dynamics. This is why many reform skeptics are cautious about unintended consequences—thinking about a single variable in the absence of a larger context usually has unexpected results.

Moreover, as Mann and Dionne explain, we need to be cautious of applying lessons from the states to Washington:

"The gridlock in Washington is a consequence of the ideological polarization of the parties buttressed by vast party networks, their strategic opposition to one another throughout the legislative process fueled by the intense competition for control of the White House and Congress, the prevalence of divided party government, and the asymmetry between the parties that leads Republicans to eschew negotiation and compromise."

"The situation in the states is dramatically different. Most now have unified party governments, and gridlock is the exception, not the rule. There is little evidence of moderation in the Republican- controlled states, whatever their campaign finance laws."

I’m sure we will continue this debate for many months to come, especially after the publication of Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail this fall. I’m glad that LaRaja and Schaffner are bringing valuable data to this important question. It’s certainly far from settled.

The use of economic resources to support election campaigns is an essential ingredient of democratic competition. Often viewed as a malady of democracy, campaign finance is actually part of the normal workings of democratic life. However, it is indisputable that money is capable of inflicting significant distortions on politics and policymaking. When there is a failure to regulate money in the political process or existing regulation is ineffectual, the legitimacy of democratic processes can be jeopardized.

These concerns are particularly relevant to Latin America, a region plagued by a highly unequal income distribution, and where organized crime has a major presence, transacts billions of dollars each year in illicit business, and has the potential to corrupt democratic institutions. In this policy brief, Kevin Casas-Zamora and Daniel Zovatto offer practical guidance for making campaign finance regulation feasible and increasing its likelihood of success. In undertaking reform, countries should prioritize the most urgently needed changes with the broadest political consensus. Proposals for reform include:

• Establish greater control over private funding of parties and election campaigns;

• Create a public subsidy system to ensure fair access for parties and candidates to adequate funding to finance both regular day-to-day operations and election campaigns;

• Adopt mechanisms to keep campaign spending from skyrocketing;

• Craft party and candidate reporting systems to increase accountability, transparency, and disclosure; and

• Establish a graduated and credible system of sanctions for the chief financial officers of political parties in the event of violations of the rules in force.

Downloads

• The cost of democracy: Campaign finance in Latin America

Hillary Clinton’s release of her campaign finance proposals on Tuesday confirms there will be no significant substantive differences on political reform among the aspirants for the Democratic presidential nomination but a huge gulf between the two parties, whoever the nominees.

Harvard law professor and activist Larry Lessig announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination this past weekend based on the single issue of political reform, but his quixotic and gimmicky campaign is akin to carrying coals to Newcastle. His only difference with the other Democratic candidates is his insistence that political reform (primarily on campaign finance) should be of the highest priority and other concerns (immigration, wages, climate change, economic inequality, infrastructure, national security) should play second fiddle. Lessig apparently believes that Republican and independent voters will rally to his call and create a broad base of public support for bipartisan cooperation on changing the rules of the electoral game.

If only it were that simple. The gaping differences between the parties on campaign reform are both ideological and strategic. Republicans are more philosophically disposed to elevate free speech over political equality. They also realize that as presently constituted, their party is advantaged by fewer or no restrictions on money in politics, lower turnout among minorities and youth, and single-member districts. Democrats instinctively reject the argument that money is speech and are comfortable with using public authority to set and enforce the rules of democracy. But they also know that they would benefit from restrictions on big money in elections, guaranteed voting rights for all citizens, and a more proportional translation of votes into seats.

The Clinton campaign finance proposals generally follow the thrust of liberal reformers: building a counterforce to big money through multiple matching funds for small donors, increasing transparency by requiring timely disclosure of mega-contributions and transfers that now evade public scrutiny, and overturning Citizens United, which set the stage for a Wild West of outsized contributions and spending. Her support for a constitutional amendment to accomplish the latter is a pipedream and probably wouldn’t work if it were adopted. As she acknowledges, appointing Supreme Court justices to change the current 5-4 majority is the more promising route to the desired change.

Lessig’s dream notwithstanding, this particular agenda will be achieved only if and when Democrats manage to control both ends of Pennsylvania long enough to put the policies and a sympathetic Supreme Court in place. It’s an important choice for voters to consider in the 2016 elections but by no means the only or most pressing one.

I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.

The rise of SuperPACs, the decision in Citizens United, and intensified polarization in Congress has ignited a flame under the already robust academic debate over the role of money in elections. Last week, Lee Drutman wrote an article for Vox outlining the recent contribution of Raymond J. La Raja and Brian Schaffner made to the debate with their book, Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail.

The crux of the book argues that allowing political parties to control more money, not less, is the key to reducing polarization. This runs counter to many pro-reform writings, focused chiefly on empowering small donors in order to counter big-money politics. La Raja and Schaffner counter this narrative, suggesting parties channel money to create moderation, rather than small donors, which are polarizing.

Drutman pushes back on both accounts by taking issue with some of the underlying assumptions in When Purists Prevail, including the weight they place on median voter theory and the extent parties will spend money on moderate candidates in primary elections. He marshals a host of recent research to support the critique, including: a recent Brookings paper on the strength of political parties, data on the power of outside money in congressional elections, and research showing moderate districts do not necessarily produce moderate candidates.

Click here to read the full article on Vox.

Event Information

As the sixth anniversary of Citizens United v. FEC approaches on January 21, both experts and ordinary citizens believe the United States is confronting a campaign finance crisis. Citizens United and related court cases have unleashed a flood of dark money that many believe could drown our democracy. It is estimated that over $5 billion will be spent on the 2016 presidential race—more than 3 times the amount spent in 2008 (already the most expensive election cycle in history). A comprehensive poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS News in the spring of 2015 showed that 84 percent of adults—including 90 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans—believe that money has too much influence in American political campaigns. Even the richest Americans agreed: 85 percent of adults making $100,000 or more share that same belief.

There has been much handwringing about this state of affairs. But there has been too little public attention paid to finding solutions. On the sixth anniversary of Citizens United, the Governance Studies program at Brookings hosted current and former government officials, lobbyists, donors, advocates, and other experts to discuss how to resolve the campaign finance crisis. They focused on innovative reform efforts at the federal, state, and local levels which offer the hope of addressing the problem of big money in politics.

Panelists will included:

Cheri Beasley, Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Daniel Berger, Partner, Berger & Montague, P.C.
John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President, Free Speech for People
Norman L. Eisen, U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic (2011-2014); Special Assistant and Special Counsel to the President (2009-2011); Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Bruce Freed, Founder and President, Center for Political Accountability
Steve Israel, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY)
Roger Katz, Chair, Government Oversight Committee, Maine State Senate (R)
Allen Loughry, Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia
Chuck Merin, Executive Vice President, Prime Policy Group; Lobbyist
Connie Morella, Ambassador to OECD (2003-2007); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (R-Md., 1987-2003)
Jeffrey Peck, Principal, Peck Madigan Jones; Lobbyist
Nick Penniman, Executive Director, Issue One
Trevor Potter, Commissioner, Federal Election Commission (1991-1995; Chairman,1994)
John Pudner, Executive Director, Take Back Our Republic
Ann Ravel, Commissioner, Federal Election Commission (Chairwoman, 2015)
Timothy Roemer, Ambassador to India (2009-2011); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Ind., 1991-2003); member 9/11 Commission; Senior Strategic Advisor to Issue One
John Sarbanes, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Md.)
Claudine Schneider, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (R-R.I.,1981-1991)
Peter Schweizer, President, Government Accountability Institute
Zephyr Teachout, CEO, Mayday PAC
Lucas Welch, Executive Director, The Pluribus Project
Fred Wertheimer, Founder and President, Democracy 21
Tim Wirth, Member, U.S. Senate (D-Colo.,1987-1993); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Colo.,1975-1987)
Dan Wolf, Chair, Committee on Steering and Policy, Massachusetts State Senate (D)

Click here for a full agenda.

Video

• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 1
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 2
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 3
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 4

Audio

• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 1)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 2)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 3)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 4)

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• Solution Summits Agenda120
• 20160121_campaign_finance_summit_transcript

We have received many emails and calls in response to our blog last week about our campaign finance reform “Solutions Summit," so we thought we would share some pictures and quotes from the event. Also, Issue One’s Nick Penniman and I just co-authored an op-ed highlighting the themes of the event, which you can find here.

Ann Ravel, Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the outgoing Chairwoman kicked us off as our luncheon speaker. She noted that, “campaign finance issues [will] only be addressed when there is a scandal. The truth is, that campaign finance today is a scandal.”

(L-R, Ann Ravel, Trevor Potter, Peter Schweizer, Timothy Roemer)

Commenting on Ann’s remarks from a conservative perspective, Peter Schweizer, the President of the Government Accountability Institute, noted that, “increasingly today the problem is more one of extortion, that the challenge not so much from businesses that are trying to influence politicians, although that certainly happens, but that businesses feel and are targeted by politicians in the search for cash.” That’s Trevor Potter, who introduced Ann, to Peter’s left.

Kicking off the first panel, a deep dive into the elements of the campaign finance crisis, was Tim Roemer, former Ambassador to India (2009-2011), Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, (D-IN, 1991-2003) Member of the 9/11 Commission and Senior Strategic Advisor to Issue One. He explained that “This is not a red state problem. It’s not a blue state problem. Across the heartland, across America, the Left, the Right, the Democrats, the Republicans, Independents, we all need to work together to fix this.”

(L-R, Fred Wertheimer, John Bonifaz, Dan Wolf, Roger Katz, Allen Loughry, Cheri Beasley, Norman Eisen)

Our second panel addressed solutions at the federal and state level.  Here, Fred Wertheimer, the founder and President of Democracy 21 is saying that, “We are going to have major scandals again and we are going to have opportunities for major reforms. With this corrupt campaign finance system it is only a matter of time before the scandals really break out. The American people are clearly ready for a change. The largest national reform movement in decades now exists and it’s growing rapidly.”

Our third and final panel explained why the time for reform is now. John Sarbanes, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-MD) argued that fixes are in political reach. He explains, “If we can build on the way people feel about [what] they’re passionate on and lead them that way to this need for reform, then we’re going to build the kind of broad, deep coalition that will achieve success ultimately.”

(L-R in each photo, John Sarbanes, Claudine Schneider, Zephyr Teachout)

Reinforcing John’s remarks, Claudine Schneider, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (R-RI, 1981-1991) pointed out that “we need to keep pounding the media with letters to the editor, with editorial press conferences, with broad spectrum of media strategies where we can get the attention of the masses. Because once the masses rise up, I believe that’s when were really going to get the change, from the bottom up and the top down.”

Grace Abiera contributed to this post.