Campaign Finance Reform: Do we have it in us to fix this?

American politics has a money problem. But it hasn’t always been this way. There was a time in early American history when our leaders were writing their opinions to dream of a better world; social media did not exist. They would speak on the streets to win support. It was a time before politics was ruled by just two parties with vast financial backing. In spite of all attempts to prevent a two-party system at its formation, two parties have existed in some form since shortly after the founding of the American Republic. Our current two Democrat and Republican parties have existed since 1850 and they have since evolved to become evermore extreme. At the center of it all is money. History has shown that controlling the message is a big part of a democracy turning into an authoritarian government; money gives political parties the ability to generate and control the message. The power of this influence keeps growing as these two parties spent 14 billion in the 2020 election cycle on their message. Political messaging has become more extreme and often pushes messages against the other; this keeps everyone who’s not with you on the outside of your group and many are often told that the others are against you. However, research has shown that the two-party system does not represent the average person; in other words, our two political parties have become too large to sustain the variety of political ideologies that span the country. Besides ranked choice voting and open primaries, campaign finance laws must be fixed if we want to have any chance at having more competition. To keep a democracy healthy, we must allow for better competition between more candidates and provide a way for their voices to be heard. To be clear, we need to give people a better voting system first: one that lets them rank candidates in their preferred order without the constraints of closed primary systems. Only then can we imagine a world of true campaign finance reform. The two-party system is earning too much while in power and they have no reason to fix the campaign finance system that gives them their backroom payouts. We have to first change how we elect our representatives. Then can we work towards truly changing our campaign finance laws.

We must first understand how we got here and its impact. Before Citizens United in 2010, there were some limits on campaign spending and that spending had to be disclosed. Dark Money was not a term that we were familiar with. Now, we face the harsh reality of it’s impact: dark money is abundant, foreign influence is pervasive and the messaging is getting more negative. We have a two-party system that has come to a log-jam. They both have come to strain under the pressure of having to choose one side or the other — and only having two choices means that they inevitably represent the extremes as they face an ever present pressure to appeal nationally in order to win. Understandably, how can they get out of this financial feedback loop? Access to RNC or DNC funds means that you get to spend a lot of money to continue to “buy” yourself a job of power; an analysis of spending between 2000 and 2016 show that 90% of winners of US House seats were the highest campaign spenders. We’re electing people to represent one of two political parties but with a different social and economic purpose but both of which are united in their desire to outspend the other in order to win. As entities, they are earning power and an explosion of dark money has meant the rewards are that much higher. They can write laws with the help of corporations, interest groups, or lobbyists — who are also now free to donate to or create PACs to support their political allies — without oversight of who is funding who. We’re in this mess because of money.

Money buys you access to create a lot of messaging. With advertisers knowing more than 5000 data points on us — and political campaigns are now using apps to gather data — its no surprise that they can trigger us. With abuse of the way our data has been collected and used in the past, we must also rethink how we should allow campaign funds to be spent. Should we be allowing such targeted advertising in order to influence us? With so much dark money now in politics, it is more likely than not that this abuse is still occurring — even from foreign adversaries actively working to keep us angry at the other; political instability is seen as advantageous for some foreign powers who use it to earn their own worldwide influence. The end result is we end up in political bubbles, with campaign messaging always attempting to influence us in order to vote a certain way. Fear is a powerful motivator and hearing something that you think might possibly occur because you’ve seen it advertised often enough and heard others who are also repeating the same thing (once again: political bubbles), you start to believe the worst in the other. And how can we not expect that? We see such corruption in the way things are done but we have not worked to change it. There’s still too much money in the way.

What is a system that we could adopt to make it more fair? How can we work to limit money’s influence in politics? Perhaps we could update and try a form of public funding of elections or democracy dollars? What would this mean for our two political parties and could we convince them to change? It is not likely without changing the direction of politics. They simply have accumulated too much power as a 2-party political system to want to relinquish that power. Instead, enough forward leaders will need to drive the change.

There are two sides to the influence of money in politics. There is the ability of the politician to advertise him or her-self. And there is the amount of money that an individual can donate to a politician. Currently, a business is also considered a person in this matter. One idea that Andrew Yang popularized is to use “Democracy Dollars” that are, in essence, the individual’s provided political financial donation that they can give to candidates. The idea is that this would also increase participation in our elections, which was only about 67%. This idea works to provide the average person with financial influence towards who they like the best, without having to use real money; in other words, even those without access to discretionary spending would be able to participate in the election process. Although there are considerations around implementation, it is an interesting idea. The average presidential candidate’s donation was around $50 per person in 2020 if you average out how much was spent across all eligible voters (14 billion spent / 239 million eligible voters = ~$58/person); perhaps that’s a good place to start?

The other side of the coin is if there should be an upper limit to spending — and what about PACs? Regardless, there absolutely should always be transparency in political advertising and campaign financing. We must know and understand who is financing elections. We have and should provide the influence of each person and business who is supporting a candidate if they spend more than a reasonable amount; currently that limit is $200. Facebook and any organization that received political advertising funds must provide the source of the funds as well. We know the influence of money in politics but often do not know the source of that influence. Dark money has meant that more people are hiding behind the scenes. It’s time to think about changing that.

Current political advertising laws allow access to a large amount of our data. That data has been used against voters already. We must set limits to the way our data can be used to target us, or else remain susceptible to its influence. This anger that political messaging creates leads us to believe that there’s a wide difference between us, but that’s simply not the case; we want to solve the same issues. Our current two parties are fighting to sustain their power; they simply aren’t interested in discussing how to move forward.

When thinking about how to solve these problems, the answer is not always obvious. Most are against unlimited spending in political campaigns but what should be the limit? Knowing the influence of money, should someone’s personal wealth be a tool in their own race to win? When thinking about changing how campaign finance works, there are other impacting factors that do not have a clear answer. However, one thing is clear. With inaction towards this in our current 2-party system, nothing will change unless we do. It’s time for change. It’s time to move forward.

We know that no one of us has all the answers, and we work best when we work together towards a final solution. I believe it’s time to implement real change and that begins with ranked choice voting and open primaries. In that way, we can elect leaders interested in moving us forward rather than representing a party. Only then can we start to work towards campaign finance and political advertising reform. We understand the power of money; its time to limit that power.

My name is Daniel Ferrara and I’m planning to run in California to move us forward. Although the details are still awaiting finalization due to redistricting, in the meantime I will be writing and exploring ideas around a future we can imagine, if we only choose to vote to move forward. I recognize that my ideas are not always the best, and try to encourage constructive discourse. I created MathPolitics and these articles as a way to encourage more thought around the ways we can imagine a shared future. We face the outcome of our choices and voting influences that ultimate direction: in a democracy, voting is the ultimate choice and I am choosing to vote forward. I am working for a future where we have:

• Ranked Choice Voting and Open Primaries: We need to allow for more competition in democracy for it to succeed.
• Universal Basic Income: We face a future where automation is putting jobs at risk. In order for us to continue to create opportunity for everyone, we need to provide this stability.
• Term Limits in All Branches: Politics is inherently a position of power, and we need to limit a single person’s impact.
• Campaign Finance Reform: Massive money in politics has poisoned a free democracy, and enabled a two-party duopoly in government, with 14 billion spent in the last election cycle to “influence us”. (Non-)Bipartisan is a term that is only used in a two-party democracy; I’d like to see this term go.
• Financial Transparency (for all who serve in government): The minimum we can ask is that any elected official must submit their tax returns and their business holdings as well as detail into campaign finance donations. They must be held to a higher bar, as they have been elected to a position of power. We must have transparency.

Campaign finance reform and political advertising reform is something I believe heavily in. In political advertising, the abuse we’ve seen has contributed to a toxic political environment. The system is built to self-sustain because it’s been built to exclude diversity of ideas. We have a two-party system that often punishes descent; that is not a good thing for democracy. It’s time to add more choices.

Ranked Choice Voting gets us to a future where we’re voting for an individual instead of a party. Only in that way can you listen to what that person is saying, not just their party. We should not be electing a representative of a party; we should be electing a representative of the people.

I realize that I often may not have the best solution alone. That’s why I believe in constructive disagreement; let’s work together in the ways we disagree to end up in a better place. If you like my ideas and want to help me move forward, please consider adding your email for updates. I also can make mistakes: so please contact me if I do. Lastly, if anyone would like to volunteer to help, feel free to reach out as well. Email at mathpolitics@gmail.com, follow me at @mathPolitics on Instagram or comment on this article.