politics | Digifesto

Double take: Hakeem Jeffries

Wait a second. Something about this isn’t right.

This is how Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries explains his “Summer at the Subways” office hours:

Since not everyone has the time to visit the office during the day, I will bring my office to a location where many community members find themselves at some point when returning home from work: The subway.”

Isn’t there some kind of contradiction between this tacit admission that most of his constituents are rail commuters and his strong stance against congestion pricing?

My read on this is that Jeffries is caught in a political trap. He appears to genuinely want to support his constituents and do right by them, but likely had to cave under party pressure on the congestion pricing issue in order to maintain any influence in the legislature.

Others will not be so charitable.

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August 6, 2008

Pimp moves, local politics edition

Yesterday morning I was stopped at the entrance to the subway by my Assemblyman, Hakeem Jeffries, who handed me a card explaining that he would be holding office hours each evening inside subway stations in his jurisdiction. I am impresed.

I’ve heard some complaints about his politics. But there is no denying that this is a pimp move.

The New York Times has more coverage.

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August 2, 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 3)

Earlier, I argued that grassroots campaign funding doesn’t really make campaigns more democratic. Public campaign financing is better, but only if it is designed to actually level the playing field. The U.S. federal campaign finance system is not well-designed for this.

One of the often cited problems with public campaign finance in the United States is its susceptibility to ‘loopholes.’ While most campaign finance systems will attempt to impose some constraints on private contributions, it appears that the politically motivated always find a way around the restrictions. 527 organizations are the most notable examples of this, but there are others. For example, a thorough study of the donors to local campaigns will reveal that in many cases all the employees of a particular company will individually make donations to one candidate up to the local limits. If it is possible for the leadership of the company to pressure employees to contribute in this way, then company has effectively gotten around the legal restrictions its own ability to donate as a company.

The typical response to this sort of news is the call for stronger restrictions and better enforcement of them. But this generates a backlash. Many argue that we have a right to make private campaign contributions, a right derived from our right to free speech. Whether or not this moral argument is correct, it has been enforced by the Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell. In addition, many see private ‘grassroots’ campaign contributions as a revitalization of political participation.

So removing the influence of money from politics completely appears hopeless. Thankfully, one fact means that despite ‘loopholes’, public campaign financing still can mitigate the problem of unequal representation based on wealth.

That fact is the diminishing returns of campaign funding. A candidate with a $15,000 budget has an enormous advantage over a candidate with a $5,000 budget. But if candidates’ budgets are $30,000 and $20,000, then the advantage is much smaller even though the dollar difference is the same. At some point the campaign message saturates its audience. Empirical research into the effects of campaign finance consistently report that the effect on elections of differences in funding between major candidates is surprisingly small

What public campaign financing can have a big effect on, though, is who gets to be a major candidate in the first place. Third party candidates don’t get a break in our system. And in states where the major party PAC’s have a lot of funding and power, representatives from low income districts can be held hostage to the interests of their state PAC without whose support they would not be able to run for office. A strong and fair system of public campaign financing solves these problems.

So ultimately, grassroots funding and public campaign financing are compatible–we can have a system that allows for both. But public financing is absolutely necessary to reduce the effects of money on politics, even if it can’t eliminate them entirely.

July 19, 2008

Web class campaign finance

Sean Tevis, journalist-turned-information-architect, is running for Kansas State Representative for District 15. Brilliantly, he posted this webcomic about his campaign in the style of XKCD, asking for donations to reach his goal of raising $26,000. Last Wednesday, it hit Boing Boing. Shortly thereafter, the web site was down due to mass traffic. By two days later, the donations far exceeded his target, and people across the country are following his progress.

Guys like Paul Newell should learn from this guy about how to run an intern et campaign! So what’s his secret?

A simplistic answer would just be that Tevis “understands the internet.” He understands the power of an honest, witty, conversational blog. He knows that people on the internet will self-organize around a good cause if it appeals to them. This explanation totally ignores the mechanism of his success though.

Tevis’ campaign funding is ‘grassroots,’ but grassroots campaign financing works by harnessing class or identity interests. Obama’s grassroots funding comes largely from the disposable income of his wine-track supporters. Tevis’ funding comes from a narrower base. It comes from readers of Boing Boing. It comes from people who are turned on by an homage to XKCD.

Sociologist Manuel Castells has argued that as governments lose the ability to provide for the needs of their citizens, people will organize around other, non-national identities that give their lives meaning. Somtimes these identities are tied to a particular region, like the Basque ethnic identity. But other identities, like the global feminist movement, and radical Islam, are indifferent to regional and state boundaries.

Tevis’ campaign funding illustrates the mobilization of the bearers of a new identity like these others–the identity shared by lots of the people who are active in the most forward-point parts of the web. There is a strong culture there, with its own communicative style, aesthetic sensibility, and core politics. I will call the bearers of this culture the ‘web class’ (although I don’t love the term and welcome alternative suggestions).

Don’t believe me? Perhaps you think that the majority of the donors were rallying around a general progressive agenda, accessible to all? I think the title of Cory Doctorow’s explosive shout out says it all:

Progressive geek looking for 3,000 people to help him win Kansas election against dinosauric anti-science/pro-surveillance dude

Yes, progressivism gets a mention. But the clinching trifecta is:

Tevis is pro-science. The web class loves science, because they know the internet owes everything to science and see the improvements science can make in their lives each day.
Tevis is anti-surveillance. The web class is sensative to issues of surveillance and privacy because their day-to-day life is both highly exposed and at risk of digital attack. The web class is constantly renegotiating what is public or private, and is loathe to lose control over that aspect of their lives.
Tevis is a geek. “Geek” is entirely an identity label, that denotes a shared outlook of creative practicality, as well as an independence from/rejection by “the mainstream.” The web class is largely constituted by geeks, and in this context the label is an honorific: “He is one of us.”

Like Obama’s supporters, the web class is made up largely of young professionals and students who can spend their parents’ money. I’m pretty sure a subset of them were what kept Ron Paul’s campaign alive for so long. In addition, because geography is comparatively irrelvant to the web, it is just as irrelevant to web class politics. (Several potential donors to Tevis’ campaign–for a Kansas state government position–were legally unable to because they weren’t U.S. citizens.) This makes them an excellent base for remotely financing elections. And if this sort of thing keeps up, then the web class will have some serious political clout across U.S. for the years to come.

Is this a good thing?

I’m ambivalent. On principle, I object to the heavy role of money in politics, even if that money is ‘grassroots.’ In this case, the fact that most of Tevis’ donors are likely from out of state gives me additional worry. On the other hand, I appreciate Tevis’ politics, and believe that, for example, the project of science and scientific education is one that transcends and supercedes the project of democratic legitimacy. Part of me feels strongly that the web class should not hesitate to take politics into its own hands. I will likely donate to his campaign anyway. What do you think? Comments are very welcome.

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June 23, 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 2)

If grassroots funding does not really solve the problem of campaign finance, then what other option is there?

Public campaign financing–where the state provides money for candidates to run–is the more traditional solution. If the state provides funding to qualified candidates irrespective of their political positions, then that means that only voter preferences will determine who will win office.

That’s how it works in theory, at least. In practice, there are several problems with the current public campaign financing systems, and especially our current presidential system.

One of those problems is qualification. Obviously, you can’t just give public campaign funding to everybody. But if the conditions of qualification reiterate the conditions for financing a private campaign, then public funding doesn’t help anybody. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens with the current presidential funding laws:

At the federal level, public funding is limited to subsidies for presidential candidates. To receive subsidies in the primary, candidates must qualify by privately raising $5000 each in at least 20 states. For qualified candidates, the government provides a dollar for dollar “match” from the government for each contribution to the campaign, up to a limit of $250 per contribution. In return, the candidate agrees to limit his or her spending according to a statutory formula.

This is lame. Contrast it with the Clean Elections financing system used in Maine, Arizona, and elsewhere. In this system, candidates qualify by getting some number of seed donations (commonly limited to $5) that demonstrate popular support. In systems like these, qualification correlates to voters, not dollars.

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June 21, 2008

Public vs. grassroots campaign financing (part 1)

John McCain has long been seen as a congressional crusader for campaign finance reform. It now looks like Obama will fund his general election campaign largely through small, ‘grassroots’ donations from supporters. Each candidate is trying to take the moral high ground regarding his funding choices. That raises the question: which is better, public campaign financing from the state or grassroots funding from small donors?

When looking into this question, it’s important that we keep our eyes on the prize. Ideally, sources of campaign funding would have no influence on who can run and get elected. The argument for this is simple. Money is not evenly distributed; access to political representation should be.

In this light, ‘grassroots’ funding is a step forward, but problematic. On the one hand, it does diminish the influence of lobbyists and special interest PACs. But on the other, the fact remains that most ‘grassroots’ contributions are not from average citizens after all, but from the wealthier-than-average. See Jay Mandle’s Washington Post article for the numbers on this. Although certainly admirable, the success of Obama’s ‘grassroots’ fund raising relative to, say, Clinton’s, when one considers that Obama was more popular among wealthier Democrats. His base was better able to afford to make $200 contributions.

So to some extent, grassroots funding devolves the problem of money in politics from a problem of special interests to a problem of class interests. This shift looks even more dramatic when one considers that special interests are often indirectly representing working class interests (for example, in the form of unions).

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June 20, 2008

Obamanet

Anil Makhijani pointed me to a New York Times article on Obama’s announcement to forgo the federal public campaign financing system and the spending limits it entails. It’s an important story that’s worth a read. But speaking of e-campaigning, there;s one detail in particular that caught my eye:

Mr. Obama announced his campaign finance decision in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet.

Click here to see the video.

I am far from the first to bring this up, but Obama’s use of the internet in his campaign is amazing. I’ve heard the analogy has been made between FDR and radio, Reagan and television, and now Obama and the internet; each mastered a new communications medium and used it to great effect to rally and expand their base.

What seems special about Obama’s use of the internet is that it allows him to eschew mainstream media outlets entirely when he needs to. Rather, he is using tools communication that are available to all of us: videos posted on the Internet. There is something compelling about this use of popular tools to reach the populace. It places him not just in living rooms, but in social networks; however distantly he may be from you or I, he is present in the same space.

This ties directly back to his fund raising efforts, of course. By existing, virtually, among his supporters instead of transcending them, he can ask for the millions of small donations for which his campaign is famous. Institutions–even the institution of the Democratic party itself–are made obsolete as an intermediary.

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June 10, 2008

DNC reject lobbyist money

This is week-old news by now, but I just saw this New York Times article.

The Democratic National Committee, now operating under Barack Obama’s fundraising rules, on Friday returned about $100,000 in money from lobbyists and political action committees.

The donations were already ”in the pipeline” when Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, instituted the standards for the committee, a party official said.

Generally speaking, I am deeply suspicious of party politics in the US. As the upcoming Newell/Silver election in AD-64 shows, party allegiance indicates almost nothing about whether a politician stands for real reforms. One of the appealing things about Obama, to me, was his apparent rejection of the party machine.

Perhaps this is a sign that Obama’s reform principles are politically infectious.

Thanks to Kailin Clarke for the tip.

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May 19, 2008

Farm Bill

From Open Congress‘ Congress Gossip Blog, the latest on the farce of federal agriculture policy:

Apparently the Farm Bill, which is opposed by just about anyone who has been paying attention, is actually quite popular among members of Congress. Although the bill does almost nothing to address growing concerns over the U.S. agricultural subsidies system that rewards wealthy farmers and tilts the food market in favor of cheap, unhealthy junk food, it managed to pass both the House and Senate with overwhelming, veto-proof majorities.

I’m pretty impressed with Open Congress’ work on documenting the legislation and its roll through congress. Their roll call of the Senate, for example, makes it easy to see which, if any, of the senators might have principles. Here’s the shockingly small list of senators who opposed the bill:

Sen. Robert Bennett [R, UT]
Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
Sen. Susan Collins [R, ME]
Sen. Jim DeMint [R, SC]
Sen. Pete Domenici [R, NM]
Sen. John Ensign [R, NV]
Sen. Judd Gregg [R, NH]
Sen. Charles Hagel [R, NE] — who has stated that he will resign from the Senate in 2009 and has been mentioned as a possible cross-party VP pick for Obama.
Sen. Jon Kyl [R, AZ]
Sen. Richard Lugar [R, IN]
Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R, AK]
Sen. John Reed [D, RI]
Sen. John Sununu [R, NH]
Sen. George Voinovich [R, OH]
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D, RI] — who replaced Republican Lincoln Chafee in the 2006.

Interesting patterns here: the only two Democrats to oppose the bill were both from Rhode Island. Other than that, the backwoods northeast (NH, ME) and the southwest (AZ, NM, NE) are highly represented.

All three senators still in the presidential race abstained, as did Ted Kennedy, who just suffered from a seizure.

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Category: politics