When governments impose limits on how much money is spent in campaigns, whom does it benefit, the established politicians or the newcomers? Does it encourage people to participate in the electoral process or further alienate them?
Let me phrase the question this way. If Salt Lake City limits the money people can spend to become mayor, could an unknown from the city's west side ever make it?That was a question posed to me this week by Stuart Reid, a west-sider of meager means and political exposure who recently made headlines by declaring he would not abide by the city's voluntary $375,000 spending limit in this year's race for mayor.
The limit is voluntary, by the way, because the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear in 1976 that compulsory spending limits violate the Constitution's guarantee of free speech. Money, as we all know, talks, and the greater the amount, the greater the volume. But without money, a political newcomer is nothing more than a mouse trying to squeak attention to itself at a rock concert.
"If I'm limited to $375,000, I lose," Reid said. "I don't know if I'll spend that much, but I do know I'll spend everything I have to get my name out."
The other candidates in the race are Dave Jones, a longtime legislator who has run for mayor before; Ross Anderson, who recently ran for Congress; and Jim Bradley, a former county commissioner who ran for governor in 1996.
"They have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on previous campaigns, to get their names and agendas out there," Reid said. "I spent $6,000 on a City Council race."
He's done the polling and, compared to the other three, Stuart Reid doesn't register on the name-recognition scale.
And so we have a modern dilemma; a circular problem. People are turned off by runaway campaign costs. They feel disaffected and refuse to either run or vote. Alarmed, governments try to curb spending to encourage more participation. Spending curbs serve to keep the established candidates entrenched, which in turn alienates the voters.
Most people would think $375,000 is enough to get the word out to the roughly 180,000 people who live in Salt Lake City. But who knows? Who wants to be left without the ability to spend money when a last-second barrage of attack ads swoops in from the opposition?
City councils don't consider those questions too closely when they try to limit spending. They know money talks, but they are less concerned about the volume control than they are about the balance. Like many Americans today, they worry that lobbyists and special interests will gain too much influence with a candidate. They worry that candidates will lose sight of the people they were elected to serve.
But they are trying to do something that is biologically impossible. To separate politics from money is like separating humans from air. And even if they succeeded in limiting campaign spending, they would not solve the problem.
Frankly, though, Salt Lake City could have been a little more creative about it. Kentucky passed a bill that actually withstood a Supreme Court challenge. It gives each candidate the option of accepting a public campaign subsidy. If the candidate takes the cash, he or she must agree to a spending limit. But then the law adds an interesting twist.
If a candidate refuses public financing and then exceeds the state's voluntary limit, the ceiling disappears and even greater amounts of public money begin pouring to the candidates who did accept the subsidies.
Those Kentuckyans are clever, all right. But what have they solved? Lobbyists and special interests are there. No doubt so are the negative ads and all the other things people hate about campaigns. All the law does is keep people from spending money.
And that's what it comes down to. Costly campaigns offend modern sensibilities. No one likes it when a candidate buys an office. The flip side, of course, is that political newcomers can't win unless they can spend enough to become known. In other words, limits are as arbitrary as rain, but not everyone gets equally wet.
There is a solution, but it involves a little work on the part of voters. Cities, counties and states should begin requiring candidates to make more frequent and complete disclosures of all contributions and expenditures. Then they should post those disclosures on the Internet for all to see.
That way, voters could see whose influence each candidate was accepting, and they could judge accordingly. Not only would they know people like Reid, they would know the people behind him. Come to think of it, the disclosures would speak louder than the sound bytes heard in those expensive political ads.
Deseret News editorial page editor Jay Evensen may be reached by e-mail at even@desnews.com