Differing Views on Corruption and Campaign Finance

I keep thinking about the recent line of U.S. Supreme Court campaign
finance cases that limit corruption to "quid pro quo" situations. A
few months ago, I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/mccutcheon-decision-and-local-governm…; target="”_blank”">a
blog post</a> explaining that the Court's picture of campaign
finance as about political beliefs is not how things work at the
local level, where politics is more about power and spoils than
about beliefs. But the "quid pro quo" view of corruption is
problematic in other ways.<br>
<br>
One problem is that this view involves only one kind of
corruption:  personal corruption. It is relevant only to
situations where one individual wants a candidate or official to do
something very specific in return for a campaign contribution. This
is a problem, but it is not the principal problem in campaign
finance.<br>
<br>

What is most problematic in campaign finance is institutional
corruption, that is, legal contributions and independent
expenditures that lead to special access and preferential treatment
that cannot be directly traced to a quid pro quo deal, but are
reasonably seen by the public as either pay to play or ongoing
favoritism related to a series of contributions over time.<br>
<br>
This is especially true at the local level, where most sizeable
campaign contributions and independent expenditures come from those
seeking, or trying to maintain, special benefits from the
government, including contractors (especially professional
contractors and consultants, whose contracts are rarely
competitively bid), developers seeking permits and approvals,
grantees, regulated businesses, government appointees, and government employee unions.<br>
<b><br>
</b><b>Personal vs. Institutional Corruption</b><br>
When personal corruption is discovered, it is damaging primarily to
the individual, although it does reflect on the entire government. The more of it there is, the more it resembles (or reflects) institutional corruption and, therefore, undermines trust in the government.
Personal corruption can be lessened by effective laws,
training, advice, disclosure, and enforcement.<br>
<br>
Institutional corruption is damaging to the entire government. And
in most campaign finance programs, the only defense against it is
disclosure. Ridding a community of institutional corruption requires
a change of culture which, with respect to campaign finance, is
accomplished through the very laws (contribution limits and
prohibitions, and public campaign financing programs) that have been
weakened or prohibited by recent Supreme Court decisions that apply
personal corruption standards to these institutional corruption
prevention methods.<br>
<br>
<b>Corruption According to the Public and According to Justices</b><br>
The wrongheadedness of these decisions can be seen by looking at two
very different kinds of situation, one of which I was involved in myself.
Several years ago, I told my town's First Selectperson (effectively
the mayor) that I would give her the maximum contribution ($1,000)
if she would promise to form a charter revision commission. I had
been arguing that this was the responsible thing to do, because our
town hadn't formed one for over 25 years, longer than any of the
other large towns in the state that still had our small-town form of
government. It was time, I believed, for our community to discuss
its form of government and to bring the charter in line with state
and local laws that had been passed over the last 25 years.<br>
<br>
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, this was a bald act of
corruption, even though I had nothing to gain personally, in a
financial or even a political way. The First Selectperson refused my
offer, and it's now been well over 30 years since my town has had a
charter revision commission. Not having a discussion about our form of government suits those who benefit from it.<br>
<br>
On the other hand, a government employee union or a big developer
could spend many thousands of dollars in support of local
candidates, despite upcoming labor negotiations or the upcoming
approval of a big development project, and the Supreme Court
majority would not considered this corrupt, as long as there was no
evidence that the union or the developer elicited any promises from
the candidates it supported. It may look to citizens (if they knew
about the spending before the election, since most local campaign
contributions, especially for independent expenditures, are neither
frequently disclosed nor easily accessed) as if the union or
developer were trying to buy the election, but this is okay, since
there was no quid pro quo.<br>
<br>
In short, there are two kinds of corruption:  what the public
considers corruption and what the Supreme Court majority considers
corruption. What I did, in the name of my belief in the open discussion of important community issues, is not generally
considered corrupt or corrupting. I simply refused to make a
contribution to any candidate who did not promise to do something
important to me, but not in any way that would benefit me personally. What people do
that appears to be intended to get them a higher salary, a permit
for their development, or a contract is generally considered
corrupt. But the Supreme Court majority considers what they do legal, and
what I did illegal.<br>
<br>
At the very least, the Supreme Court decisions should not be applied
at the local level. But even at the federal level, it's questionable
whether the majority's view of corruption is shared by much of the
public, which appears to see little difference between conflicts of
interest and campaign finance. Perhaps the Supreme Court majority's
view that these are different is as as out-of-sync, and as important, as its out-of-sync
definition of corruption, which is the topic of a lot more discussion.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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