States Are New Battle Zones of Campaign Reform

Stymied by a powerful state lawmaker who claimed the public didn’t care about campaign finance abuses, reform advocates in North Carolina set out to prove him wrong. Their canvassers descended on a softball tournament in his district, where they found 500 voters irate enough about the issue to put their names on a petition. That was enough to turn the onetime adversary into an ally.

Up north in Vermont, reform proponents turned to visual aids to help their cause. As part of their bid to stem the flow of outside political money into the state, they distributed poster-size airline tickets. Listed as passengers: “Special interest contributors;” their destination: “Anywhere outside Vermont.”

With federal reform measures seemingly stalled on Capitol Hill, the forces trying to clean up U.S. elections are using such grass-roots pressure to open up a second front--the long-neglected arena of state government.

“We felt that we could show Congress that you can pass campaign reform and that here is a state that got it done,” said Vermont state Rep. Karen Kitzmiller, main sponsor of that state’s new law establishing public financing for the costs of running for office.

Advocates Point to Victory in Vermont

“The only place campaign finance reform is moving right now is at the states,” said Ellen Miller, head of the Washington-based reform group Public Campaign.

The group has made action at the state level its top priority, and last month it convened a strategy session of reform advocates from 40 states in Raleigh, N.C., to push its pet proposal. Known as “clean money reform,” the measure sets up a system of public financing for candidates who voluntarily accept spending limits.

With most state legislatures having closed up shop for 1997, the reformers can point to one big victory--the sweeping public finance law adopted in Vermont--as well as meaningful if less dramatic successes elsewhere. These include a new Florida law that tries to ensure that supposedly independent expenditures on behalf of political causes really are independent, a measure adopted in Illinois to computerize fund-raising records to make them more accessible, and a Virginia statute banning fund-raising by legislators while they are in session.

Issue Lacks Broad Appeal With Public

Meanwhile, in at least five other states--Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri and Washington--as well as New York City, efforts are underway to get reform initiatives establishing public financing on the ballot next year. But the statehouse crusaders have had their share of setbacks, some due to the same problems that plague the reform efforts in Congress. In Connecticut, for example, a Democratic-backed public-financing bill failed in the House last spring by two votes when Republican Gov. John Rowland threw his weight against it, claiming that he could see nothing wrong with candidates raising significant amounts of money.

“The lesson to draw is that it’s hard to change the system at the state level as well as at the federal level,” said Connecticut Secretary of the State Miles Rapoport.

One common obstacle for state and federal reformers is that for most voters, campaign finance reform lacks the gut appeal of bread-and-butter issues. “There is not the intensive public concern that you find about a proposal to increase taxes or cut Medicare,” Rapoport conceded.

“It seems like a very abstract issue,” said Bob Hall of Democracy South, a research group that is part of the coalition of organizations backing campaign finance reform in North Carolina. Hall, however, insists that the case can be made.

“When you connect it to the lack of regulation that means bad water for your kids or banks getting a special tax loophole, you can get people’s attention,” he said.

That was the tack the reformers took at the recent softball tournament. Still, the fate of their proposal to broaden North Carolina’s disclosure requirements for campaign contributors remains in doubt. One reason: the inherent reluctance of state legislators to change the system through which they have gained office, a similar phenomenon at work in Congress.

Reforms Challenged on Free-Speech Grounds

Chris Scott, head of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, supports reform but complains that those pursuing it are often unrealistic in their approach. “They forget that to get real campaign finance reform, you probably have to ask legislators to compromise and maybe jeopardize their own chances of winning reelection.”

Another difficulty reformers at the state level share with those pursuing the issue on Capitol Hill is the prevailing judicial doctrine set by the Supreme Court that equates contributions with free speech and views efforts to limit campaign spending as threats to the 1st Amendment.

This has resulted in legal challenges to reform initiatives adopted last November in California and Maine and seems likely to trigger a challenge to the public-spending law enacted last spring by Vermont.

Proposition 208--the California initiative passed handily by state voters--capped individual contributions at $500 for legislative races and $1,000 for statewide contests. But groups complaining that it is an unconstitutional abridgment of the right to financially support candidates filed suit in federal court, and the case is expected to be heard this fall.

State Campaign Costs Reaching New Heights

The Vermont law--in addition to cracking down on out-of-state contributions--establishes campaign spending limits not only for candidates who accept public financing, but also for those who don’t. Even its supporters acknowledge that would seem forbidden by the Supreme Court ruling.

“At the moment, [the state law] is not constitutional, but we believe it will be as time goes on,” Kitzmiller said.

Other reformers, however, contend that the best way to deal with plugging the loopholes that special interests inevitably have found in campaign finance laws is to sidestep the issue.

“As long as there are people who want to push money into campaigns because they view it as an investment, there isn’t much you can do,” said Democracy South’s Hall. “I think the best thing is to provide an alternative [through public financing] for candidates who want to get out of the money chase altogether.”

Most of the impetus for reform at the state level comes from escalating political spending--the same force driving the effort for federal offices. Few state candidates run up the big-ticket media bills federal candidates face, but the nickel-and-dime spending that once marked campaigns for most state offices is a thing of the past.

“People are always looking for new ways to get an edge in a race,” said Nick Nyhart, national field director of Public Campaign, citing such tactics as targeted mail and cable television advertising. “And these ways cost money. And there are enough deep pockets out there and state laws are weak enough so that you can move a lot of money into a state campaign.”

Added Seth Effron, editor of a political newsletter in North Carolina: “Ten years ago, anything more than $30,000 was an expensive tab for a state legislative seat [in the state]. Now you need $100,000 if you want to be sure to win.”