Campaign finance reform for Dartmouth Board of Trustee and Association of Alumni elections is politically untenable at this time, according to a report released on Thursday by an Association committee tasked with exploring the issue.
"Although the clear majority of those responding recognize that the amount of money involved in alumni trustee and AoA executive committee campaigning in recent elections raises serious issues worthy of attention, the Dartmouth alumni community is significantly divided over whether anything can or should be done about it through the medium of changed election rules or guidelines," the report states.
The report the result of several months of research and analysis comes after a series of elections that have been increasingly contentious and expensive. In the most recent race for an alumni-elected seat on the Board of Trustees, top-tier candidates spent more than $100,000 on their campaigns.
There is a consensus among politically active alumni that candidates should not have to spend large amounts of money to have a legitimate chance to win an election, Association President John Mathias '69 said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Mathias is a member of the election reform study committee, which was created to assess whether current campaign rules should be modified for Board and Association executive committee elections in light of high spending among candidates.
Alumni disagree, however, on whether anything can or should be done to reform campaign finance procedures, Mathias said.
"You really need a controlling consensus among politically active alumni," Mathias said. "Unless you have a controlling consensus among politically active alumni to create and enforce election finance, it appears to be unachievable at this moment in time."
The Association committee made two proposals to help reduce expenses, recommending that the election period be shortened from six to four weeks and that candidates be allowed to have "more expansive personal statements" in ballot mailings and on the College-sponsored election web site.
"With a shorter election period, there is a shorter period of time where people will feel the need to do mailings or communications, and by allowing candidates to more broadly state their case in media that would either be mailed by the College in the case of ballot material or posted by the College in the case of the web site, candidates would feel less of a need to spend money on communications of their own," David Spalding '76, the Association secretary-treasurer and the College's vice president for alumni relations, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "That would equally benefit candidates from all perspectives."
John MacGovern '80 said that although campaign finance reform has been seen as the central issue, he considers candidates' ability tto disseminate their message to be more important than high expenses.
MacGovern is the founder of the Hanover Institute, a nonprofit organization that has supported the campaigns of several trustee candidates critical of certain College policies. The institute is also helping to fund the current alumni lawsuit against the College.
Candidates nominated by petition in Association elections are disadvantaged because they do not have the administrative resources of those candidates selected by an Association nominating committee, MacGovern said.
"The emphasis on money in races is kind of missing the point," he said. "If they really wanted to take the money out of these races, they would end the behavior that leads to contention and divisiveness."
MacGovern and other alumni have contended that an 1891 Board resolution legally requires parity between the number of Board-selected and alumni-elected trustees. This parity ended with the trustees' decision to increase the number of Board-selected members in 2007.
If the College decided to re-establish parity and "not try to shut down the voice of alumni," campaigns would not be so contentious and would not require extensive financing, MacGovern said.
Mathias said that he is hopeful an agreement will be reached in the future on campaign finance procedures, although it appears that a consensus will not be reached in time for the upcoming round of elections.
"Maybe in the future it can be done people would have to work together," Mathias said. "We are hoping that we can educate and moderate differences of opinion among alumni so that it will yield at the end of the day something that is beneficial to the College."
The Association election reform study committee plans to continue to examine potential reforms or changes to campaign finance procedures over the next few years, Spalding, a member of the committee, said.
"We're not attempting to write the final chapter in terms of changes of this election," Spalding said. "The Association will look at how this election works out and look for additional ways to change. I would expect this to be a good start in terms of reforms this year, but it is something that the executive committee will continue to work on in the future."
Although the election reform study committee did not find a consensus among active alumni on how to address spending, it expressed general principles that, according to its report, should serve as guidelines on the issue.
"Elections should not be influenced by the amount of money spent campaigning," the Association committee report said, adding that "petition candidates should never be disadvantaged by any restrictive election guidelines or rules."
While the proposed reforms are aimed at limiting campaign expenses, some politically active alumni have raised concerns that such a move would limit the free speech of petition candidates.
"I am glad that they will not be limiting free speech and spending by people trying to challenge the administration-backed candidates," MacGovern said.
The election reform study committee initially began looking into campaign finance reform in May.
Between mid-August and mid-September, the committee solicited opinions from alumni using a questionnaire, and received about 450 responses. The committee also contacted about 50 politically active alumni to directly ask for their opinions on the issue, Spalding said. An open forum for alumni was held in Hanover on Sept. 12 to discuss the issue.
The Association executive committee is not expected to make any decisions about the suggested election procedure changes until next week, Spalding said.
