Public Opinion and Campaign Finance

A Skeptical Look at Senator McCain’s Claims

by David M. Primo

David M. Primo is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Stanford University.

No. 60

Sen. John McCain of Arizona and other advo-cates of additional regulations on campaignfinance argue that spending on elections hascaused public cynicism about and mistrust of American government. They also believe thatpublic opinion indicates that Congress shouldmove immediately to pass new campaignfinance regulations. This paper uses publicopinion data to test both claims.McCain and his allies are wrong on bothcounts. The data show that campaign spendingcould not have caused increases in public mis-trust of government—indeed, rising soft moneyspending has been followed by increases (notdecreases) in public trust in government—andthat there is no statistical relationship over timebetween campaign spending and public trust inAmerican government. The data also show thatthe public assigns a low priority to altering cam-paign finance regulations.Both findings militate against the currentattempt in Congress to pass the McCain-Feingold regulations on campaign fundraising.New regulations on campaign finance will notincrease public trust in government becausecampaign spending did not cause public cyni-cism. Moreover, contrary to Senator McCain’sopinion, the low priority given campaignfinance regulations by the public suggests thatthe McCain-Feingold bill should be dealt withmuch later in the 107th Congress, after morepressing issues have been addressed.

January 31, 2001

Introduction

In the 2000 race for the presidency, Sen.John McCain (R-Ariz.) promoted campaignfinance “reform” as a partial solution towidespread citizen cynicism about politics.Al Gore promised that his first act as presi-dent would be to send campaign finance leg-islation to Congress. The mass media, whichcover campaign finance feverishly andassume that money is the root of all politicalevils, report on new regulations with little of their usual skepticism. The appeal of suchproposals is easy to understand. In an era of public cynicism about politics, new regula-tions promise new ways of doing business inWashington.Campaign finance is now front and centeron the congressional agenda. Sens. McCainand Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) will reintro-duce their eponymous legislation in the107th Congress.

They propose eliminating“party soft money,” or contributions tonational political parties that must be usedfor “party-building” activities like getting outthe vote. The bill also promises to bring“issue advocacy” under federal campaignfinance laws.

McCain has been quoted assaying that there will be “blood on the Senatefloor” if the bill does not pass.

McCain believes the public supports hisefforts to pass new campaign finance laws: “Ibelieve that the country wants this reform.There is no doubt about the explosion of softmoney. There is no doubt that it has gridlockedus here in Washington and the message of thelast election is that Americans do not wantthat.”

In announcing his plans to introducethe legislation, McCain also noted that pollsterJohn Zogby had briefed Republican senatorsabout the broad public support for new regula-tions on campaign finance.

Public opinion figures in the campaignfinance debate in another way. Advocates of new regulations on fundraising argue thatthe unregulated aspects of the current sys-tem (soft money, issue advocacy) foster pub-lic cynicism about and mistrust of Americangovernment. Americans do lack confidencein Congress and the presidency specificallyand in the federal government in general.

If the advocates were right, new restrictions oncampaign finance might counteract this gen-eral trend in public opinion toward a mis-trust of American government and publicofficials.I contend that the advocates are wrong onboth counts. Specifically I argue that

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there is a weak link between the decreasedtrust in government and campaign spend-ing and that

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the public favors change in campaignfinance laws but ranks it as an extremelylow policy priority.

Trust in Government andCampaign Spending

Do campaign contributions corrupt legis-lators and “buy” elections? Discerning a clearrelationship between campaign contribu-tions and policy outcomes is an imposingtask. There is conflicting statistical evidenceregarding the effect of spending on cam-paign outcomes, and the evidence for acause-and-effect relationship between dona-tions and policy outcomes is muddled.

Nonetheless, most advocates of reformintimate that quid pro quo corruption is thenorm but stop short of directly making thatclaim. Others such as Senator Feingold doassert that “money talks” and refer to cam-paign contributions as “legalized bribery.” Ingeneral, advocates of more regulation sug-gest that even the

appearance

of impropriety isenough to warrant additional regulation,since citizen distrust of government is con-nected to the belief that politicians are cor-rupt.

Consider Senator McCain’s statementintroducing his bill in 1998:Mr. President, no Washingtonpundit thought that the Housewould actually pass campaignfinance reform, but it did. It was not

There is a weaklink betweendecreased trustin governmentand campaignspending.

an easy fight. But those in favor of reform prevailed. I hope the majorityin the Senate that favors reform willbe able to prevail here.

A majority inthe House passed reform because the American people demand it.

Membersof the House recognized that the cur-rent system is awash in money,exploited loopholes, and publiclyperceived corruption. It is a systemthat no Member of Congress shouldtake pride in defending.As I mentioned, Mr. President, yes-terday was primary day in Arizona.Turnout was an all-time low, indicat-ing another record-setting lowturnout election day.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the way in which we finance our campaigns has in no smallmeasure contributed to the abysmal healthof our democracy.

The people’s con-tempt—there is no more charitableway to describe it—for us and for theway in which we attain our privilegedplace in government cannot be sus-tained perpetually. We will somedaypay a high price for our inattention tothis problem. We will forfeit our abili-ty to lead the country as we meet thecomplicated challenges confrontingus at the end of this century becausewe have so badly squandered the pub-lic respect necessary to persuade theNation to take the often difficultactions that are required to defendthe Nation’s interests.Our ability to lead depends solelyon the public’s trust in us. Mr.President,

people do not trust us today. And that breach, that calamity, is what thesupporters of campaign finance reformintend to repair.

I beg all of my col-leagues to join in this effort and giveour constituents a reason to againtrust us, and to take pride in the insti-tution we are so proud to serve.

McCain is not the only senator to makeunsupported claims. On the campaignfinance section of his Web site, Sen. FredThompson (R-Tenn.) writes: “Americans haveless and less faith in their government. Oneof the main reasons is that they are distrust-ful of the system we have in place to elect ourpolitical leaders.”

Meet the Press

onJanuary 7, 2001, Thompson reiterated theimportance of getting campaign finance leg-islation on the agenda, because it could helprestore confidence in the system:I think that President-elect Bush willwork with McCain and others of uswho think we ought to do some-thing in this regard, that big moneyhas gotten out of control and playedtoo much of a role in American poli-tics. . . . [F]or the first time, we havean opportunity of coming up withsomething that I think is good andwill help restore a little bit of confi-dence of the American people in oursystem.

Some journalists make similar claims. Inher book on the corruption of American pol-itics, Elizabeth Drew writes that the “danger-ously low” trust in government has beencaused in large part by “the enormous andever-growing role of money in our politicalcampaigns—with corruption now outpacingeven that of the Nixon era.”

She offers littlein the way of actual evidence for such aclaim.

In all, reformers are quite confident thatcampaign finance is a major cause of thepublic’s distaste for politics.

It turns outthat those claims are overblown. Yes, citizens’trust in government is low,

and, yes, cam-paign spending has been increasing at a rapidclip. However, if we examine the time-seriesrelationship between trust in governmentand overall spending shown in Figure 1, norelationship exists.Before drawing any final conclusions, let’sbe precise about what the would-be reform-ers are claiming. They believe that increasesin campaign spending have caused decliningtrust in government. To be the cause of