[open-government] [Sunlight International] Regulating Money in Politics a Global Shortcoming

Thu Aug 1 17:40:10 UTC 2013

Thanks, Lisa. "Unconstitutional" doesn't mean regulation is impossible to implement, though; it just means it is very hard to implement. Citizens United is a fairly recent decision - will its consequences last forever? Hopefully not. Hopefully, spending limits will some day be considered constitutional again, for all the reasons citizens, governments and corporations in the US have disagreed with that ruling. Hopefully, Sunlight's campaign to shine light on the unlimited money will motivate the public and lawmakers to regulate campaign finances, and make changes to the constitution if necessary.

Transparency, in this case, is a tool to achieve regulation through education, and people in any country can use transparency in this way to make the public and lawmakers willing to regulate. I understand how, as in the US example, laws may prevent certain kinds of desirable regulations. Can anyone give good examples as to how a misalignment with culture prevents regulation of spending or contribution limits? I'm sure they exist; I just can't think of one, and maybe others on the list can't either. (I recognize that some parties in power may have a culture of corruption and unfairness, but I wouldn't consider that to be an alignment worth respecting.)

I'm having trouble understanding Lisa's point that transparency (and not regulation) is universally applicable, because transparency laws can have all the same trouble that other regulations dealing with spending or contribution limits can have. In Quebec, privacy laws (and privacy culture) prevent transparency of legislators' expenses while in office, for example. Transparency can misalign with laws and culture just as easily as other regulations can. Support for transparency can erode, countries may lack the institutions to enforce it, and - dare I say it - certain kinds of transparency laws may even be unconstitutional in some countries.

So, I wouldn't say transparency is the way to go for the reasons given, which so far actually make transparency and regulation pretty even in terms of merit. I think current efforts on transparency are important mostly in so far as they inspire regulation – the idea being, as John McCain said with respect to Citizens United, that a backlash would occur when people see the amounts of unfettered money that go into political campaigns.

James

P.S.: If we are attempting to be comprehensive, a fifth approach (or fourth if you group both spending and contribution limits under regulation) is "prevention" which might include creating a culture of honesty and fairness (ha!), among other (potentially more effective) strategies.

On 2013-08-01, at 12:45 PM, Lisa Rosenberg wrote:

> Thanks for engaging in this important discussion.  I think we all come from a place of trying to reduce the influence of money on the political system, and of course there are numerous approaches.  James outlined three, “financial transparency, financial limitations (spending limits) and legal enforcement.” I would actually add a fourth, which is contribution limits.
> 
> Sunlight believes that transparency is the option that can be most readily adopted on a global level, which is why we believe that is where we need to start.  Spending limits may work in Canada, for example, but in the US they are unconstitutional. Other countries may be similarly unable or unwilling to impose spending limits.  In terms of contribution limits, and again just taking the US as an example, we see support for those eroding at a rapid pace.  Many countries do not have the institutions to fairly enforce the law—especially campaign finance laws where the party in power might turn a blind eye to violations by its own.
> 
> So that leaves us with transparency, which is to us the fundamental building block that can result in the evidence needed for other countries to create reforms that align with their own laws and cultures. In addition, and even before changes more directly related to how campaigns are financed, transparency can lead to a more informed public, it can mitigate the influence of private contributions in the political arena, it can help prevent or curtail violations of the law—bolstering or replacing the efforts of government institutions.  And, critically, transparency is—or should be—universally applicable and achievable on a global level. 
> 
> Lisa 
> 
>  
>  
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 11:13 AM, James McKinney <james at opennorth.ca> wrote:
> To respond to Jon's first question:
> 
> > Interesting piece, but I think Sunlight's approach to this is wrong - or maybe just restricted by its mandate and location. Instead of increasing transparency of campaign fundraising and spending, should we not just focus on removing money from politics?
> 
> That same blog post seems to suggest that financial limitations may be a more basic, primary requirement than financial transparency: "If we can’t stop the money from coming in [via spending limits], we at least need to know where it is coming from [via disclosure]." So, Sunlight seems to clearly be in favor of spending limits (which is one way of removing money from politics, or of stopping "the money from coming in" in other words).
> 
> However, Sunlight's visible work (its websites, visualizations, etc.) will usually be about transparency, because lobbying for spending limits tends to be much less visible (meetings with influencers, etc.) and much slower. Also, it is pretty clear how technology can boost transparency, but it's not at all clear how it can help with spending limits - so it should not be surprising to be hearing more about transparency from an org whose strategy is very tech-oriented.
> 
> Coming back to the question, if the focus should be more on spending limits and less on financial transparency, then you are saying that Sunlight (and MapLight, OpenSecrets, FollowTheMoney, etc.) is focusing on the wrong problem. But there already exist organizations who dedicate themselves more completely to campaigning for spending limits, and I still see a need for transparency tools, so I'm not sure there is a call to action here.
> 
> James
> 
> 
> On 2013-08-01, at 10:44 AM, James McKinney wrote:
> 
> > I don't think Jonathan is saying that transparency is unnecessary. I think he's saying that it's not enough - and maybe not the most important component of a fair political system when it comes to finances. He's clearly in favor of regulating campaign finance (such as with spending limits), and he's definitely not saying that there should be fewer laws for off-the-book transactions! I think there's been a fair amount of misunderstanding. I see three components coming out of the discussion:
> >
> > - financial transparency
> > - financial limitations (spending limits)
> > - legal enforcement
> >
> > The situation you describe in Hungary is one where there are financial limitations, but poor legal enforcement. Clearly, when introducing the spending limit legislation, there should have been a plan for its enforcement, so that parties would not be able to raise money through illegal channels while still respecting the legislation. Turning up the dial on transparency isn't going to reduce the amount of dark money, because the parties will simply not comply with the transparency legislation, the same way they did not comply with the spending limits.
> >
> > The situation in US federal (and at least some state) elections is roughly that there are insufficient financial limitations [1] and insufficient financial transparency [2]. I have no idea about legal enforcement.
> >
> > The argument in favor of spending limits is fairly general, the same way the arguments in favor of financial transparency and legal enforcement are fairly general. You can make the argument (see next paragraph) that in any democratic system, these three components make the electoral system (and political system) more fair. That's not to say they are the most urgent issues in terms of fairness in all contexts: reducing or eliminating discrimination and violence are also components to a fair system, among others.
> >
> > I assume we all understand why transparency and enforcement are necessary. What about spending limits? I'm sure there is plenty of well-researched, evidence-based material on the subject, but maybe Sunlight's own blog post [2] saying "We need both disclosure *and* limits" is sufficient to end this particular debate?
> >
> > James
> >
> > 1. http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/outside-spenders/2014/super-pacs/
> > 2. http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/07/22/to-combat-dark-money-states-must-focus-on-disclosure/
> >
> > On 2013-07-31, at 6:06 PM, Julia Keserű wrote:
> >
> >> Jonathan,
> >>
> >> What you’re proposing and apparently implementing in Québec makes a lot of sense, I just don’t really get how it conflicts with the idea of increased transparency. Whatever reform you’re suggesting (and again, I’m not entirely sure that these reform ideas work in every context, but that’s another question), it's going to be based, to some degree, on having public knowledge of where the money goes and where it comes from.
> >>
> >> And yes, you’re quite right about the importance of enforcement but a “very strong monitoring body that inspects campaign activities, staffing, offices, and other items to see if their activity is disproportionate to their declared revenues," will work only if these activities and expenditures are transparent. Regardless of your end goals, transparency is essential to getting there, unless you believe in totally deregulated campaign finance. But I have a feeling that’s not what you believe in.
> >>
> >> Re: off the book payments, are you suggesting that because there is always a chance of breaking the law, we just shouldn’t have a law at all or stop trying to improve it? I get your point: there will always be people who break the law, but if you have a well-regulated system where information is credible, detailed, complete, and published in a timely and searchable manner, it apparently becomes more difficult (aka time consuming and expensive) to find new illegal channels. It is especially true in a healthy ecosystem where other parts of the money chain - procurements, contracts, asset disclosures, etc. - are transparent, and so connecting the dots is relatively easy.
> >>
> >> I’m very curious about what the others think.
> >>
> >> Julia
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com> wrote:
> >> Hi Julia,
> >>
> >> Sorry, I should have clarified. I propose (and Québec implemented) that we remove private (corporate and individual) donations and replace them with state funding based on number of votes with caveats for new parties. We also limit campaign spending to 6 million per election cycle.
> >>
> >> Transparency for off-book revenue and expenses? How do you propose that? A campaign that takes illegal cash donations and then spends illegally on get out the vote campaigns, database construction and other back-office endeavours is not likely to make that public in any way. I am confused how transparency will help?
> >>
> >> To reduce illegal donations and spending, the only way I see is a very strong monitoring body that inspects campaign activities, staffing, offices, and other items to see if their activity is disproportionate to their declared revenues.
> >>
> >> Let me know if I missed something.
> >>
> >> JB
> >> Je vote pour la transparence
> >> I Vote For Transparency
> >> Montréal Ouvert - Québec Ouvert
> >>
> >> On 2013-07-31, at 1:17 PM, Julia Keserű <jkeseru at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey Jonathan,
> >>>
> >>> Thanks a lot for your input!
> >>>
> >>> Removing money from politics seems rather impossible (parties need money for their daily operation and candidates need money to be visible when running for office), though I`m not quite sure this is exactly what you’re envisioning here. Did you mean removing private money from the system?
> >>>
> >>> Limiting money in politics might be a good goal, but experience shows it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, indeed it might be rather counter productive by creating new illegal channels of fundraising and off the book payments. For instance in Hungary where there are strict campaign spending limits, but parties obviously ignore it. (See TI Hungary’s ‘hypocrisy’ campaign: http://kepmutatas.hu/english/)
> >>>
> >>> Overall, we at Sunlight think transparency and granular data is the first step to demonstrate the brokenness of the system. First you need to be able to show exactly how much money is spent on elections or parties, where it comes from and if it is indeed too much. And then, once you have the necessary information in hand, you might want to consider ways to reduce the impact of money but these solutions will largely depend on the specific political, social and economic context. And either way, you'll need super transparent systems to make sure there are no off the book payments.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> Julia
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com> wrote:
> >>> Hi Julia,
> >>>
> >>> Interesting piece, but I think Sunlight's approach to this is wrong - or maybe just restricted by its mandate and location. Instead of increasing transparency of campaign fundraising and spending, should we not just focus on removing money from politics?
> >>>
> >>> In Québec, we just unanimously passed a law that reduces campaign funding to 100$ per person per year and 200$ per person during an election year. We also capped elections at 6 million dollars in expenditures. This, to me, seems like a much better solution.
> >>>
> >>> I dived into some details in my post on my blog, but I think we should just try and remove as much money from politics as possible instead of making a shitty system transparent.
> >>>
> >>> Blog post here: http://www.jonathanbrun.com/2013/07/personal-democracy-forum-pdf-2013-thinking-small/
> >>>
> >>> JB
> >>> Je vote pour la transparence
> >>> I Vote For Transparency
> >>> Montréal Ouvert - Québec Ouvert
> >>>
> >>> On 2013-07-29, at 11:28 AM, Julia Keserű <jkeseru at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> (Sorry for cross-posting.)
> >>>>
> >>>> http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/07/29/regulating-money-in-politics-a-global-shortcoming/
> >>>>
> >>>> Regulating Money in Politics a Global Shortcoming
> >>>> by Júlia KeseruJuly 29, 2013, 11:11 a.m.
> >>>> Open government advocates around the world (including Sunlight) are thrilled to see how more and more governments commit themselves to openness. Unfortunately, a vital piece of the transparency agenda--party and campaign funding--remain depressingly opaque. Because the financing behind how candidates and parties come to power influence later policy and spending decisions, it is critical that countries address political finance transparency. Sunlight is committed to create a strong base for reform by combining our efforts with other activists and sharing our expertise in a meaningful way.
> >>>>
> >>>> Political finance opacity throughout the world
> >>>>
> >>>> Recent scandals around illegal party funding practices in Spain or the turmoil in Brazil have again highlighted the irony, controversy and - pardon our language - obvious hypocrisy behind the new tide of government transparency. The fact that decision-makers still don’t seem to associate party and campaign funding transparency with government openness is utterly depressing, though not at all surprising.
> >>>>
> >>>> It is no use arguing against the fact that future politicians do need some sort of funding to be able to run for public office and political parties cannot operate without financial resources. But trying to convince decision-makers that voters, watchdog organizations, journalists and (oh yes!) oversight bodies must have easy and timely access to granular information about party and election funding seems equally challenging to explaining the advantages of not watching television to a 6-year old.
> >>>>
> >>>> As a result, political financing has been repeatedly rated as the “weakest component of countries’ anti-corruption framework” since international organizations and institutions (such as Transparency International, Global Integrity, IDEA or GRECO, the European anti-corruption monitoring body) began tracking the performance of national public integrity systems. If you want to get goosebumps (no, not the nice ones), take a look at our map that visualizes the political finance transparency scores of 31 countries from Global Integrity’s extensive research on anti-corruption mechanisms and the integrity of national institutions. For more details or similarly disappointing country scores from previous years see GI's full research.
> >>>>
> >>>> Global Integrity Scorecards on Political Finance Transparency, 2011 (Covering 31 countries)
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Party and Campaign Funding Trends
> >>>>
> >>>> And Global Integrity is not the only strict critic here. According to an analysis based on the most recently updated IDEA database that catalogues political finance laws from around the world, only “53% of the countries require reporting from both parties and candidates” and in more than 25% of the states that do so, “there is no requirement for this information to be made available to the public”. And in the age of rapid technological development, online reporting is not on the radar of even the most progressive countries. But when it comes to the level of citizen's trust in reporting and oversight mechanisms, aka practice, that's when the picture gets the worst.
> >>>>
> >>>> Transparency Intrernational research on the National Integrity Systems (NIS) of 25 European countries demonstrates how political parties in even European countries "suffer from the lowest levels of integrity registered among all national institutions and sectors. Such high levels of perceived corruption can be linked to the increasingly negative influence that unregulated party and campaign financing have had on countries’ political processes and decisions." In other words, regardless of how simple or sophisticated their political financing regulations are, countries around the world are equally failing to effectively regulate undue influence in decision-making and while being quite apt at priding themselves on every single dataset they release, looks like politicians do not consider political funding as ripe for reform. How can we tell?
> >>>>
> >>>> Hardly Any OGP Commitments Around Party and Election Funding
> >>>>
> >>>> We had a look at the OGP commitments and out of the 48 countries with delivered commitments to the Open Government Partnership, only 6 (!) had a hint at regulating the flow of money into politics. This does not necessarily mean that other non-OGP states cannot undergo important changes but the trend is obvious. And honestly there's no reason to believe that countries without working freedom of information legislation or a strong culture of accountability would be eager to introduce radical transparency laws.
> >>>>
> >>>> If we put aside our inherent skepticism for a second we might also assume that some of the national action plans at the OGP simply forget to mention ongoing reform initiatives around political finance transparency. However there's enough evidence to believe that besides Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Latvia, the Netherlands and the Ukraine, no other national governments have anything to say (or do) about their more or less broken party and election funding systems.
> >>>>
> >>>> High Time for Reform
> >>>>
> >>>> Is there a way out? It will definitely be a painfully slow process leading our politicians out of the trap of systematic corruption which is in many cases essential for their survival. Still, we believe that the rising tide of government transparency creates an important opportunity to push for better disclosure norms and laws in political funding. The financial crisis already evoked a never-before-seen level of citizen outrage and demand for more transparency generally. With proactive disclosure of public interest information becoming a default, why should party and campaign funding be an exception? The rapid development and increased use of technology can create global momentum for political finance transparency reforms in a way that has been impossible before, and yes, this is indeed the perfect time to start pushing together for better systems.
> >>>>
> >>>> In the upcoming months, we want to map the social, political and technological landscape of political finance transparency around the world, with a special focus on disclosure trends. Sunlight is planning to collect and blog more about the best practices on technology-based monitoring tools and we also have a handful of good examples on how to use technology and crowd sourcing methods in environments where access to data is very limited. Ultimately we want to combine our efforts with other activists and advocates throughout the world, and help shape the way the public accesses information about how elections are paid for and how parties are financed. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts!
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Júlia Keserű
> >>>> International Program Coordinator
> >>>>
> >>>> 1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
> >>>> Washington, DC 20036
> >>>> (1) 202-742-1520 *280
> >>>>
> >>>>
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> >>> --
> >>> Júlia Keserű
> >>> International Program Coordinator
> >>>
> >>> 1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
> >>> Washington, DC 20036
> >>> (1) 202-742-1520 *280
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Júlia Keserű
> >> International Program Coordinator
> >>
> >> 1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
> >> Washington, DC 20036
> >> (1) 202-742-1520 *280
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> -- 
> Lisa Rosenberg
> Government Affairs Consultant
> The Sunlight Foundation
> 202-360-7895
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