With a lot of excitement over the outpouring of support from small donors for the leading presidential candidates in the last few months, Laura MacCleery of the Brennan Center for Justice analyzed the "small donor revolution" today in Roll Call (subscription req'd, so I'll paste a bunch of her column below the fold).
She does a fine job articulating the difference between an influx in presidential campaign donations over the last few months and the continued reliance of Congress -- and, generally, the presidential campaigns -- on wealthy donors, while pointing out the importance of contribution limits in the current system and in an ideal public financing system in the future.
For the first time ever, presidential candidates have managed to turn small donors into their greatest funding source, sending signals that the small-donor revolution -- a mere experiment by Howard Dean just four years ago -- has officially arrived. In February 2008, according to a Campaign Finance Institute analysis of the latest official campaign receipts, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) raised 56 percent of his contributions in increments of $200 or less, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) raised 52 percent in similar amounts.
But this February was the first time the much-celebrated small donors of these campaigns exceeded the halfway mark in overall receipts. And looking further down the ballot, there is little sign that the small-donor revolution is taking root. In Congressional politics, the world of small donors is decidedly smaller.
More critical, however, is whether this small-donor frenzy spills over into the hundreds of far less visible Congressional campaigns that lack the fanfare of national change. CFI reports that Democratic and Republican Senatorial candidates are collecting just 6 percent to 22 percent of their funds from small donors. In total, in 2007, donations under $200 were a mere 17 percent of all Senate contributions and 27 percent of House-raised funds.
Congressional incumbents, predictably, have the highest reliance on deep-pocketed donors. Pre- election-year fundraising comparisons reveal that incumbents in 2007 took in six to seven times more money from large donors (giving $1,000 or more) than from contributors giving less than $200.
And Congress is where concerns about the influence of money on politics should be most acute.
Looking forward, both meaningful limits and transparency rules are important for the health of an exciting new wave of reforms -- public funding systems -- because they keep overall costs reasonable and inform the public about all of the players seeking to influence the outcome of elections.
Indeed, without a system of limits in place, it will be hard for publicly funded candidates to keep up with the spending of privately financed competitors. And a robust system of disclosure of independent expenditures enables public funding systems to release more public money when warranted by an influx of outsider money into a race. Limits are a critical complement to the public funding systems that have succeeded in Arizona and Maine.
Certainly, the landscape of money in politics is being transformed in encouraging ways. The influx of small money is a great sign that politics is engaging voters, and it does improve the health of our democracy. But in all the thrill and excitement, we should not forget that contribution limits are playing an important role in making this revolution possible -- and ensuring the voices of small donors aren't drowned out by big money and special interests.
