Publicly Financed Campaigns: Pros and Cons

Introduction 

Current studies suggest that there is a correlation between public financing of election campaigns and the outcome of elections. This paper will try to analyze the relationship between the outcome of elections and public financing of campaigns. Further, this paper will examine the influence of social media concerning the theoretical frameworks of federal funding of elections. Some few years ago the Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and many others were hailed for promoting democratic views of many nations thereby making movements such as Arab Springs to thrive ( Stieglitz , Dang-Xuan 2013, 1277) . Public funding of elections ensures that no particular donor undue advantage over the other donors and that the outcome of the election cannot be influenced by the financial capability of any donors and the financial capability of any particular candidate. 

Proposal and Advocate of the Reform 

The public funding of campaigns of presidential elections remains the least used technique of regulating the use of money in elections because of the decision of the court to strike down the law (Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck, Nord 2014, 97) . Consequently, the Supreme Court of the US ruled in Buckley v Valeo case that public funding of campaigns was unconstitutional and that the Federal Election Commission should abolish the provision from its regulations. The court held that public financing of election campaigns prompted some candidate to opt out of the use of public funds which could lead to, unions, corporations, parties, and individual contributions without having to be bound the public financing (Hazelton, Montgomery, Nyhan 2016, 589). The public funds are generally available to the political parties or the individual candidates. 

Implementation 

Montgomery and others (2016, 589) state for candidates to be financed by the state for their campaigns, however, they have to abide by some conditions: One, the candidate must accept to limit the number of public funds they spend in their campaigns. Two, the candidate must agree to limit the number of funds they receive from other independent donors. Three, the candidates much acknowledge that the funding is limited to the type of candidate in the election. Currently, there are states that approximately 14 states that provide public financing to election campaigns such as; Arizona, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland, Vermont, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Rhode Highland, Maine, Massachusetts, as well as others. Generally, the public funding of campaigns is carried out in two mains forms such as clean election programs and matching funds. In clean election programs, offer full financing of the campaign to candidates while the matching funds ensure the state provide the candidate with a fraction of the funds they need to carry out their campaign programs. 

Mechanism 

States such as Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut which offer clean election program to candidates encourages the candidates to gather some small contribution from individuals to establish that they have enough support from the public to run for the particular office and to warrant public funding for their campaigns (Montgomery et al., 2016, 594). The commission tasked for providing the funds, in return, provides the candidate with the money commensurate with the set limit for the position the candidate is vying for in the election. On the other hand, matching funds involves the candidate is provided with funds that match with the position of power they are vying for (Montgomery et al., 2016, 601). This program of funding is majorly practiced in Hawaii and Florida. For instance, in Hawaii, the amount used for a campaign is limited by the legislature and the legislature set the maximum amount of funds to be used in the gubernatorial election in 2014 to $1597208. Consequently, a candidate that opts to use public funding receives 10% of this amount for public financing of his or her campaign. 

Limitations 

Public funding for parties is also a provision of many electoral laws in the US states to facilitate conventions and other related party activities like voter registration drives (Montgomery et al., 2016, 604). At the moments public funding for parties is carried out in states such as New Mexico, North Carolina, Alabama, Minnesota, and Arizona. These states encourage citizens to contribute the amount for public funding of campaigns in the range of $1 -$25. However, countries such as Utah and North Carolina have passed laws that eliminate the provision of check-off by citizens (Damore, 2018, 309) . As a result, the audit of the number of funds used by the candidates is used to ascertain the legality of their spending and funding. 

On the other hand, the candidates can continue to request for public funding to settle their debts until after sometime even after conclusion of the elections. The public financing of campaigns can be an expensive exercise that strains the citizens in addition to the enormous amount of taxes the citizens are paying (Saunders, 2018). Also, public funding of campaigns may lead to contestation by candidates who are not interested on serving their electors but for their self-interest since they would use the minimal amount of funds from their accounts while the state settles the large chunk. 

Benefits of the Reform 

Public Funding of campaigns reforms can have many benefits to the public, the outcome of the election and the candidates in the electoral race (Saunders, 2018). Firstly, the public funding of campaigns ensures there is financial level ground for all the candidates prohibiting other candidates from having undue advantage over others. Secondly, the program discourages other parties, individuals of donors from influencing the outcome of elections. Thirds, the program ensures the citizens elect the representatives based on issues and not the financial advantages they have other others. The candidates use funds in many different ways during campaigns including; on operating expenditures that include Advertising, fundraising, travel, personnel equipment, overhead administration, and rent ( Sievert, McKee 2018) . For instance, in the race for United States Senate in Nevada has seen candidates spending a lot of money in campaigns. 

The senate campaign had two principal candidates from the two major parties (Democrats and Republicans): Jacky Rosen, representing the Democrats; and Heller, representing the Republicans (Balentine, Gerald 2018, 2) . Jacky Rosen spent a considerable amount of money on campaigns with funding coming mostly from fundraising and use of interest groups. The fundraising comes from individual contribution, 70 percent of which came from major party candidates. By September 2018, Jacky Rosen had received a total of $16.4 million in receipts and used $13.8 million in disbursements. Rosen had $2.6 million cash in hand (FEC 2018). Also, Heller had also raised a substantial amount through fundraising, raising about $13.1 million and using approximately $10.6 million in disbursement as of September 2018. His major funder is billionaire casino mogul and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. For example, the billionaire awarded Heller with individual contributions seen as rewards for opposing Iran nuclear deal in the Senate. Donald Trump has also made a state visit for the Make America Great Again rally where he showed support for Heller through conducting a fundraiser (Shaw 2018). 

Goals of the Reform 

In the case of public financing of campaigns would discourage individual funding by wealthy individuals that could lead to an undue financial advantage over other candidates (Caldwell, 2017). For instance in Nevada, if it were not for the vigorous campaign background of Rosen, the Republican candidate, Heller would have won the election due to the advantage of financial muscles he had received including from Donald Trump (Shaw, 2018). However, apart from the candidates, outside groups are also spending a considerable amount of money in support and opposition of the candidates. The outside interest groups have raised about $17 million, For instance, an outside group conducting a campaign to support the incumbent Dean Heller has spent approximately $745,000 while the group supporting Jacky Rosen has paid $107,000 (FEC 2018). 

Prospects for Adoption 

A comparison of expenditure shows that the main focus of these interest groups is negative campaigns against the opponent rather than positive campaigns for their candidates. For example, a group opposing Dean Heller has spent $9.3 million in advertisements while a group opposing Rosen has spent $2.7 million for the same reasons. The ad is one of the most expensive aspects of the campaign. The two major candidates have spent much of their expenses on advertising using both mainstream media and social media platforms ( Stieglitz, Dang-Xuan, 2013, 1277) . The candidates used many forms of advertising including releasing videos and advertisements for YouTube, TV, FaceBook, Twitter, and other social media, whereby Jacky Rosen released 40 videos and ads, while Dean Heller is released a total of 65 videos and advertisements for their campaign strategies. The central theme of these advertising videos revolves around being independent and bipartisan as well as policy topics of education, immigration, healthcare, taxes, veterans’ issues, and gun safety reform. 

Conclusion 

Publicly funded campaigns reforms should be implemented in the whole of the US electoral system for curb issues such as the undue financial advantage of some candidates on other candidates. Additionally, public funding of campaigns would reduce instances of the donors and other monopolistic organizations influencing the outcome of elections. Moreover, the public financing of elections would ensure that citizens elect leaders who are responsive of their needs and those that deserve to be elected the different elective posts. Lastly, public funding of campaigns reforms would also ensure that candidates use the funds they are provided with constructively and that they do not engage in practices that would taint the image of their counterparts. For instance in Nevada, since there is no provision for the public funding of campaigns, both candidates imitated the campaign strategy that entails name-calling. The two have engaged in exchanging accusations by running commercials focusing on the record of each candidate and their previous associations. For example, Dean Heller used Twitter to criticize Rosen for her support for the Iran deal, an action that led to retaliation from Rosen who referred to these attacks as false, pathetic and offensive. Jacky Rosen has been referring to Dean Heller as “The Spineless Senator” due to his flip-flopping on health care vote. 

References 

Balentine, Matthew D., and Gerald R. Webster. 2018. "The Changing Electoral Landscape of the Western United States."  The Professional Geographer , 70 (4): 566-582. 

Caldwell, Leigh A. 2017. "Here's why Dean Heller is the Senate's Most Endangered Republican." NBC News . https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/why-dean-heller-senate-s-most-endangered-republican-n797291 (December 3, 2018) . 

Damore, David F. 2018. "Nevada Senate Race: The Reid Machine’s Last Stand." In  The Roads to Congress 2016 , pp. 305-319. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. 

Dimitrova, Daniela V, Adam Shehata, Jesper Strömbäck and Lars W. Nord . 2014. “The Effects of Digital Media on Political Knowledge and Participation in Election Campaigns: Evidence from Panel Data.”  Communication Research ,  41 (1): 95-118. 

Federal Election Commission (FEC). 2018. “2018 Election Data and Reporting Deadlines.”  Nevada - Senate . https://www.fec.gov/data/elections/senate/NV/2018/#independent-expenditures (December 3, 2018) . 

Hazelton, Morgan L. W, Jacob M. Montgomery and Brendan Nyhan. (2016). “Does Public Financing Affect Judicial Behavior? Evidence from the North Carolina Supreme Court.” American Politics Research , 44 (4): 587–617. 

Saunders, Debra J. 2018. “Nevada Senate Race Between Heller, Rosen Rated As A Tossup.” Las Vegas Review-Journal . https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-senate-race-between-heller-rosen-rated-as-tossup/ (December 3, 2018). 

Shaw, Adam. 2018. "Trump Travels to Las Vegas to Back Sen. Heller Amid Push to Expand GOP's Hold on Senate." Fox News . http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/23/trump-travels-to-las-vegas-to-back-sen-heller-amid-push-to-expand-gops-hold-on-senate.html (December 3, 2018). 

Sievert, Joel, and Seth C. McKee. 2018. "Nationalization in US Senate and Gubernatorial Elections."  American Politics Research . doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X18792694 

Stieglitz, Stefan, and Linh Dang-Xuan. 2013. “Social Media and Political Communication: A Social Media Analytics Framework.”  Social Network Analysis and Mining ,  3 (4): 1277-1291.