Six dollars a year is all it takes to end the power of corporate lobbyists and create a national public campaign finance system, John Rauh, founder and president of Americans for Campaign Reform, told an audience of approximately 400 local residents at Spaulding Auditorium on Tuesday. Rauh's speech was the second in the summer lecture series "Positive Solutions," sponsored by the Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth.
Instead of placing caps on campaign spending, Rauh said he endorses a voluntary public finance program similar to the Clean Elections laws in Maine and Arizona. Under this program, any candidate running for national office could choose to receive public campaign funding so long as he acquires a certain number of voters' signatures and five dollar donations from these individuals. The government could provide candidates with matching donations, as in the public finance program for presidential elections, or with a fixed sum, he added.
The amount of public funding should be determined by an independent electoral commission that would submit its proposal to Congress for an up or down vote, Rauh said. This would ensure that public funding does not lag behind private donations, which is the current problem facing public finance in presidential elections, he added. According to Rauh, the estimated cost of this program would amount to just six dollars per U.S. citizen.
"You either have the money, have the contact, have a famous name or you're not in the pool," Rauh said. "It makes absolutely no sense considering how inexpensive six dollars a year is."
Following the lead of Arizona and Maine, this May, New Hampshire recently established a Public Funding of Election Commission, on which Rauh serves as a member.
The commission intends to study the feasibility of a statewide public financing system.
"Rauh was selected for his great leadership and experience in the issue," said Cathy Silber, policy director for the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance.
Voluntary public financing has broad support in the state, Silber said, adding that the main obstacle lies in determining how to pay for it, which the commission will look into.
Candidates could still reject public funds, which would permit them to accept large private donations. Rauh said he believes the majority would choose to accept public funds as they have done in Arizona and Maine in order to avoid the large amount of time it takes to solicit private donations.
Large sums, however, do not necessarily make a candidate's campaign successful, said Daniel Weeks, policy director for Americans for Campaign Reform, who spoke for a portion of Rauh's lecture. Candidates must reach a certain threshold of funding in order to be competitive, but past that threshold, research indicates that money has little to no impact, Weeks said.
Weeks said he believes it is important to emphasize options in public finance rather than restrictions. Polls show that voters prefer a cap on election spending, but such a cap, if set too low, would benefit the incumbents because the challenger would not have enough money to gain name recognition.
"We're emphasizing floors, not ceilings," Weeks said.
Although critics of public campaign funding claim such financing violates candidates' right to freedom of speech by restricting how much money they can spend on advertising, Rauh said his idea was about increasing free speech, not decreasing it. His plan does not place restrictions on the amount of money a candidate can spend, and gives under-funded candidates an equal opportunity to be heard, he said.
"Historically the Supreme Court has tried deal with the values of minimizing corruption while reducing speech," he said. "When we walk into the U.S. Supreme Court with our voluntary public financing plan, they will rejoice."
