CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

72 Syndromes of Corruption
spare time in the company of wealthy people and their particular view of
the world, and corresponding expectations among the wealthy that they
have special claims, likewise do little for the quality of representative
democracy.
The corruption problem: not bribery but bad politics
The United States has a systemic corruption problem involving political
finance, but not necessarily the one much of the public thinks it has.
Bribery of federal elected officials is uncommon, and there is little evidence
that large donors can buy Congressional votes. More bribery and extortion
occur at lower levels, but again its scope is relatively limited: the US fills
over half a million public offices by elections, all but 537 of them through
state and local elections. At issue, instead, are the vitality and credibility of
electoral politics. Popular majorities believe the campaign finance process is
corrupting, and there is a significant gap among laws, social values, and the
elite political culture regarding acceptable behavior. Further, campaign
finance laws protect incumbents, thereby (in conjunction with other
developments) reducing political competition and the apparent value of
voting as a mechanism of accountability. The institutions regulating the
connections between wealth and power in the American electoral process
have serious credibility problems, and voter participation takes place in
a setting of little real competition for many offices. Those add up to a
systemic corruption problem in the sense spelled out in chapter 1.
The new BCRA will likely add to incumbents’ advantages. Whatever its
other drawbacks ‘‘soft money’’ could be used by party leadership to help
challengers via get-out-the-vote activities and party advertising. The new
law restricts fundraising and spending to hard money only, an arena in
which incumbents fare far better than challengers. Similarly, ‘‘issue
advertising’’ – in the past, used more by national groups seeking change
than by backers of incumbents – may now be funded by hard money only,
and is therefore banned for advocacy groups, in the final phases of
campaigns. Perhaps the most incumbent-friendly part of BCRA is its
‘‘Millionaire Opponent’’ provision. For House and Senate candidates
limits on individual contributions are raised, and ceilings on party spending
on their behalf are removed, as opponents’ expenditures from personal
funds exceed a series of thresholds. While the law applies to all candidates,
self-financing is much more essential to challengers than incumbents: in
most years House challengers (many of them political newcomers) raise
between 15 and 25 percent of their campaign money from their own funds
(Ornstein, Mann, and Malbin, 2002). Even if they spent vast sums of their
own to win the first time, incumbents can easily fund re-election campaigns