To Start Campaign Finance Reform, Congress Shouldn’t “Stop”

On this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Norah O’Donnell reported a piece called “Dialing for Dollars” that explored how members of Congress fundraise for their campaigns. The piece had a critical tone, and as an organization that supports campaign finance reform we generally welcome tough looks at money in politics. But this piece missed the mark for a couple of reasons. First of all, most of the thirteen-and-a-half minute piece deals with Rep. David Jolly’s Stop Act, H.R. 4443, which prohibits members of Congress from personally soliciting contributions. And that bill wouldn’t really fix any of the problems in our campaign finance system.

There are a lot of problems with our current rules around money and elections. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, undisclosed dark money is flooding into the system three times faster than it was in 2012. The Federal Election Commission is basically dysfunctional, so there’s no one to enforce even the rules that we do have. Super PACs are pushing the envelope on coordination rules so hard that papers cuts may be soon be a pandemic in Washington. The Stop Act wouldn’t do a thing to address any of those problems. All it would do is prevent Members of Congress from being the ones to actually ask for a contribution themselves—a change that might make their jobs a little more fun but would do little to fix the system.

In fact, the bill wouldn’t even really stop Members of Congress from spending inordinate amounts of time fundraising (its purported goal). The act specifically states that it does not stop Members of Congress from “participating in a fundraising event, including planning or attending the event, speaking at the event, or serving as a featured guest at the event.” So politicians can’t literally ask for a check, but they can invite donors to a party, snack on some shrimp cocktails next to them, and then have a staffer hand them a fundraising envelope. You can hardly call that change “reform.”

Furthermore, the bill wouldn’t even stop Members from placing a phone call to talk about their campaign and then handing the phone to a staffer to make the actual “money ask.” Rep. Jolly admits that the bill does nothing to address the fact that campaigns cost millions of dollars or the problems that are associated with raising and then spending such vast sums of money. In fact, the bill could actually increase the amount of time Members spend fundraising, since they would still need the same amount of money to run their campaigns but may just have to spend more time trying to get it.

But even aside from the particulars of the Stop Act, the way the 60 Minutes program approaches the problem just seems backwards. The story features shaky hidden camera footage of “call rooms”—which are cubicles with phones at a political party’s headquarters—and compares Members to telemarketers, having to slave over phones to hit their fundraising numbers. But why would voters care that Congressmen and women have to spend time raising money in cramped call rooms? And why would they support legislation that—at best—makes politician’s lives easier without actually dealing with the main problems of money in politics?

We know from our public opinion research that voters aren’t just frustrated with money in politics, they think politicians are responsible for creating and perpetuating the problem. When we asked voters who was stacking the deck against people like them, they blamed politicians over the rich. Voters think that Members of Congress are more focused on satisfying their donors and keeping their jobs than passing legislation that would help everyday Americans. So if you’re in charge of making the rules, why should voters care if you make it hard on yourself? Clearly the Stop Act doesn’t strike the chord that voters are yearning to hear.

There should be a healthy debate about what campaign finance reform should look like, and we welcome a vast array of ideas. But it’s important to find approaches that deal with the concerns of voters. Most Americans think that money in politics is a source of gridlock and polarization. They think special interests have too much influence in Washington. They think that most of the time politicians promote policies that favor their campaign donors. So let’s talk solutions, but let’s focus on ones that would actually start to restore faith in our government.