Campaign finance reform or protecting the elites?


Just what have the Pew Charitable Trusts give their money to?
More Soft Money Hard Law does a piece on what the Pew Charitable Trusts have been up to lately.

The release describes the Trust’s commitment to campaign finance reform as "a decade-long commitment to increasing public trust and confidence in U.S. elections," which involves also efforts to reduce "the impact of unregulated soft money in federal campaigns and increase public participation."   The "impact" of soft money, as it was experienced prior to the enactment of BCRA, was apparently one appearance: "when the Trusts began its investment in this area in 1996, Americans were concerned about the health and legitimacy of the U.S. democratic process," troubled by "the question of whether these [soft money] contributions [solicited by elected officials] gave rise to the appearance of corruption in the legislative process."
      
Pew suggests that progress has been made toward the fulfillment of these goals of enhancing the "health and legitimacy" of the political process.  The money it is distributing is meant to keep up this good fight, by assuring that the flow of political money is closely monitored and that the new laws are "effectively" implemented. 

This may all seem appealing enough, but: what is the evidence that public trust in the political process has increased as a result of these reforms?  There is none, because it has not.  Confidence in the nation’s leadership is very low; Members of Congress, separated from soft money, rank well below all types of leaders. See here.  Public "participation" has not risen appreciably by any known or accepted measure.  There is no reason to believe that turnout levels rise or fall with the tides of campaign finance reform; and turnout, save for Presidential turnout in certain of the hotly contested states in 2004, remains weak in federal, state and local elections.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is one of the groups that bankrolled campaign finance reform behind the scenes. Of course no one else knew about it until CFR was a done deal.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - December 21, 2005 at 04:56 AM  Tag


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