OpEd:
Proposing an Overhaul of American Politics
July 20, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: America, Campaign Finance, Election Cycle, Incumbent, Politics
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Becoming involved in American politics is a complicated dance of fundraising, achieving name recognition via campaigning, and gaining popular support – for each election. This fundamental political truth exists for elected officials at all levels of government, and while the public election process is an essential piece of American Democracy, it is also the central point at which the political system begins to fail.
Campaigning is required to achieve the name recognition necessary to win a popular election, and this requires large sums of money: TV advertisements can run as much as US$1m for thirty seconds; traveling across the country for “town halls” and speeches is highly expensive, not to mention time consuming; and propaganda such as signs, bumper stickers, and posters must be produced in order to help the campaign supporters provide grassroots support. The main objective, then, for many elected officials who wish to be re-elected is to acquire bankrolling financiers to finance all the requisite campaign activities.
These bankrollers tend to be rich and influential individuals, organizations promoting corporate interests, and a litany of others who consider campaign financing an investment in their own personal concerns and future. As a consequence of this investment, the elected officials often feel indebted to their deep pocket investors, and even if they are not overtly told to do so, will promote policy and legislation that is in the interests of their top supporters – nevermind their constituents or conscience.
Even more worrying than politicians with puppet-strings, however, is the lengthening campaign cycle in modern America – the 2008 Presidential Election campaign ran for a year and a half with Barack Obama announcing his Candidacy in February of 2007, whereas Bill Clinton’s first term in 1992 was achieved with less than a year of campaigning. Thus within five election cycles, the time-to-completion essentially doubled. Similar situations can be found at other levels of government, such as California’s Democratic Governor-Hopeful Gavin Newsom announcing his Candidacy in April of 2009 for the Election in 2010, compared to Gray Davis’ campaign running for less than ten months in the 1998 Election – this is the time investment doubling in twelve years, slightly faster than the Presidential race.
Consider, for a moment, the term lengths that supposedly force Presidents, Governors, Senators, and Representatives alike to consider the will of the people: they range from two to six years, depending on the office. If the election cycle is lengthening for these major positions, at what point does it become too long? Even more importantly, at what point does an incumbent running for re-election spend more time in office campaigning to hold their job than actually doing said job? As the Presidential Term of Office is only four years, a year and a half of campaigning is just shy of half of their duties as President.
It is for these two essential and worrisome reasons that American politics needs a fundamental overhaul: forced detachment from third party campaign investment interests and explicit limits on the campaign length of any elected office. Legislation already exist limiting the amounts that can be contributed to campaigns, and there are current attempts to regulate further, but the essential goal is to cut the strings from the political shadow puppets – whether this is done by anonymous funding, limiting the total amount spent, or any other means is less important than action being taken against this issue.
Furthermore, legislation needs to be passed to limit the campaign cycle to no more than a quarter (25%) of the term of office for which a candidate is running, with an express upper limit of a year, in order to keep the focus of incumbents on doing what they are elected to do. This is not as controversial as it may sound, since it is dependent on the Law of Diminishing Returns: the limit for a Representative, who only has two year terms, would be six months, while the limit for a Senator, with six year terms, would be a year – the same as a President.
Admittedly, both pieces of legislation will be difficult to achieve, if not impossible, since those in charge of passing it will be directly affected by such limits – which they will perceive as negative, but Congress can be bypassed in the case of election cycle limitations, due to the need for a Constitutional Amendment. While an important and game-changing Amendment hasn’t been passed since 1971, this process has a greater likelihood of being successful than if it were a Bill passing through Congress – a state legislature needs only to propose the Amendment, and have three-fourths of the states ratify it.
Regardless of the difficulty, the fact remains that politics continues to become increasingly indebted to their campaign financiers due to a lengthening campaign process that becomes more expensive with each passing year. Attacking the problems at the source can be the only true solution, and it will require popular pressure and legislation to produce results that can be beneficial – not just a toothless, half-hearted attempt to placate the American People. However, if these problems are not addressed, the election process may soon eclipse the very office for which an official is elected, resulting in a rot of American Democracy from the inside.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
