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| Opportunities & Exposures: Politics & Policy |
Anonymously Yours
Ian Ayres
11/01/2004
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How would our political system behave if campaign donations were anonymous to
the candidate? Large donations from individuals and corporations seeking
political favors (and trying to avoid government reprimands) would evaporate,
leaving our legislators and executives to decide issues on their relative
merits, rather than by the agendas of deep-pocketed special interests. It would
also be more difficult for candidates to raise war chests. Candidates would
raise a lot less than the $3 billion spent during the 2000 presidential and
congressional campaigns, if large donors did not enjoy the quid pro quo of
legislative favors, White House sleepovers and tickets to leadership breakfasts.
 | | (Art by Matt Mahurin.) |
Chile is currently experimenting with just this approach. During the
campaigns for its municipal elections in October, contributors gave anonymously.
They deposited money in a generic account held by the election commission at the
country’s national bank, and then visited a separate election office, where they
entered a private donation booth and used a computer to allocate their
contribution to their chosen candidate or party.
We could adopt a similar
approach, and require supporters to donate to their favorite candidates through
blind trusts. The trusts would pass on the money—but not information about who
contributed it—to the candidates. Donation booths would keep campaign
contributions secret.
Critics of this plan claim that this will do little to
stop someone from claiming to have contributed to a campaign. This is true, but
will candidates believe them? The person making such a claim will have no proof;
the advantage he exacts from such a claim will be minimal.
Of course, donors
will not sit idly by. Perhaps they would show their canceled checks to the
politicians as proof of a contribution. However, government can safeguard
against this by granting all donors a cooling-off period—five days, for
example—during which time they could request a refund. Candidates would never
know whether the canceled checks represented committed donations, or money that
was on its way back to the donor.
Another option is to combine the advantages
of disclosure and nondisclosure into a single system. We could maintain our
policy of publicly disclosing campaign contributors, but give contributors the
ability to request a refund, secretly, within five days. While disclosure and
anonymity might seem like diametrically opposite goals, both share the same
underlying ambition: that the public know just as much as the candidate about
the identity of supporters. Disclosure assumes that they will both know a great
deal; anonymity keeps both in the dark. A system of disclosed giving and
anonymous refunds splits the difference. Under such a system, the public would
be able to see a complete list of those who tried to influence a candidate, but
a candidate could never be certain which backers actually contributed. While no
anonymous-donor concept is going to work perfectly, a refund booth might deter
influence peddling much more effectively than the current disclosure system
does.
Judicial Precedent
Those who doubt the efficacy of anonymous contributions
need not look far for examples. Ten states (Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota,
South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and
Wyoming) have applied this idea to judicial elections.
In 1972, the
American Bar Association (ABA) became concerned about allegations that judges
were accepting campaign contributions from law firms that represented clients in
their courts. The ABA drafted a Code of Judicial Conduct that essentially
required that contributors remain anonymous. Granted, the states that have
adopted this rule have not imposed rigorous requirements; often, for example,
the candidate’s campaign treasurer was allowed to know the donors’ identities.
Even so, candidates under this system reported having a much more difficult time
raising money. A stricter federal system would need oversight by a body charged
with keeping the information confidential. None of these problems are
insurmountable. If anonymous contributions can work in our own judicial
elections, the idea is worth applying to elections for our legislative and
executive branches.  | Ian Ayres is a Yale law professor and coauthor of Voting with Dollars: A
New Paradigm for Campaign Finance (Yale University Press). |
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