and THOMAS J. RUDOLPH

Transcription

1 EXPRESSION VS. EQUALITY The Politics of Campaign Finance Reform J. TOBIN GRANT and THOMAS J. RUDOLPH THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Columbus

2 Copyright 2004 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grant, J. Tobin. Expression vs. equality : the politics of campaign finance reform / J. Tobin Grant and Thomas J. Rudolph. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN (cd-rom) 1. Campaign funds United States. 2. Campaign funds Law and legislation United States. I. Title: Expression versus equality. II. Title: Politics of campaign finance reform. III. Rudolph, Thomas J. IV. Title. JK1991.G '8'0973 dc Cover design by Janna Thompson-Chordas. Text design by Jennifer Forsythe. Type set in Adobe Minion. Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z

3 CONTENTS List of Tables Acknowledgments vii ix 1. Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 1 2. Framing and the Issue of Campaign Finance Reform Measuring Interest Group Affect Public Attitudes toward Interest Group Rights and Influence Public Attitudes toward Campaign Finance Reform The Salience of Campaign Finance Reform Conclusions and Implications 111 Measurement Appendix 119 Notes 127 Bibliography 129 Index of Names 139 Index of Terms 143

4 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Contributions to Political Parties by Interest Groups, Table 3.2 Most- and Least-Liked Interest Groups 42 Table 3.3 Most- and Least-Liked Interest Groups among Democrats 43 Table 3.4 Most- and Least-Liked Interest Groups among Republicans 44 Table 4.1 Framing the Issue of Campaign Finance Reform 50 Table 4.2 Factor Analysis of Attitudes toward Group Rights and Group Influence 51 Table 4.3 Attitudes toward the Rights and Influence of Least-Liked Groups 53 Table 4.4 Attitudes toward the Rights and Influence of Most-Liked Groups 54 Table 4.5 Attitudes toward the Rights and Influence of Interest Groups 55 Table 4.6 Campaign Finance Attitudes by Group Affect 57 Table 4.7 Group-Centric Effects by Issue Frame, Political Sophistication 61 Table 4.8 The Determinants of Support for Group Rights 66 Table 4.9 The Determinants of Concern for Group Influence 68 Table 5.1 Public Support for Campaign Finance Reform 74 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Public Support for Campaign Finance Reform by Campaign Finance Knowledge 74 Public Support for Specific Campaign Finance Reform Proposals 77 vii

5 viii List of Tables Table 5.4 Factor Analysis of Specific Campaign Finance Reform Proposals 79 Table 5.5 Determinants of Support for Campaign Finance Reform 85 Table 5.6 Determinants of Support for Reform by Group Affect 87 Table 5.7 Determinants of Support for Types of Reform Proposals 88 Table 5.8 Determinants of Support for Regulatory Reform by Group Affect 91 Table 5.9 Determinants of Support for Deregulatory Reform by Group Affect 92 Table 5.10 Determinants of Support for Subsidized Reform by Group Affect 93 Table 6.1 Salience of Campaign Finance Reform by Type of Reform 99 Table 6.2 Salience of Campaign Finance Reform by Issue Frame 102 Table 6.3 Salience of Campaign Finance Reform by Issue Frame and Group Affect 103 Table 6.4 Determinants of Issue Salience 105 Table 6.5 Determinants of Issue Salience by Group Affect 107 Table 6.6 Determinants of Issue Salience by Issue Frame 108

6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS DURING THE three years we worked on this project, we incurred a number of debts that we would like to formally acknowledge. Scott Althaus, James Druckman, Philip Habel, Amy Jasperson, Donald Kinder, Thomas Nelson, Wendy Rahn, John Sullivan, David Tewksbury, anonymous reviewers, and seminar participants at the Universities of Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota provided helpful comments and suggestions at various stages of the project. Special thanks are owed to Janet Box- Steffensmeier, James Kuklinski, Paul Quirk, and Frank Sorauf for providing extensive written comments. Their comments and criticisms have helped to strengthen both the quality and the presentations of our research. The national survey analyzed in this book could not have been collected without considerable financial and technical support. On the financial side, we acknowledge the generous support of the Joyce Foundation, whose research grant to Janet Box-Steffensmeier, J. Tobin Grant, and Thomas Rudolph made our research possible. We are especially grateful to Lawrence Hansen at the Joyce Foundation for recommending to the Board that our research be funded. On the technical side, we thank the Center for Survey Research at The Ohio State University, particularly Paul Lavrakas and Matthew Courser, for their assistance in programming and administering our survey. We have incurred additional debts in bringing this book to press. We are particularly grateful to Malcolm Litchfield, Director of The Ohio State University Press, for his enthusiastic support and encouragement. We would like to thank Eugene O Connor and his staff for their hard work in copyediting the manuscript. We would also like to thank the American Journal of Political Science, the Midwest Political Science Association, ix

7 x Acknowledgments and Blackwell Publishers for allowing us to include portions of our 2003 article. Most importantly, we wish to thank our wives, Carolyn and Heather, and our children, Phen and Jackson Grant, and Timothy, Luke, Andrew, and Clara Rudolph, for their support and understanding. This book is dedicated to them.

8 1 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism LIKE IT OR NOT, money is the mother s milk of politics. 1 Without money, a candidate cannot organize a campaign or buy political advertisements. If a group lacks sufficient financial resources, its voice may be barely audible in the din of the political process. Money is, both literally and figuratively, a critical form of political currency. As a result, campaign finance reform attempts to regulate how political money can be raised and spent is of central importance in American politics. Changing the current system, or preserving the status quo for that matter, could potentially limit the influence of some groups while giving others a louder voice in the political process. This is one reason why public officials and politicians care so deeply about the outcome of campaign finance legislation. Apart from practical political considerations, there is a deeper theoretical reason for interest in the issue of campaign finance reform. Campaign finance reform introduces a conflict between two important democratic values political equality and political expression. Consider two statements by members of Congress during the debate over the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The first emphasizes the threat to political equality caused by the current campaign finance system: What we have in America today is a corruption of [the political] system in the broadest sense. As money has become more and more influential in politics, the inequality of the economic system has damaged the ability of the political system to function in a way that 1

9 2 Chapter 1 carries out equality...[c]ampaign finance reform ought to reduce the role of money, ought to reduce the extent to which inequality undermines formal equality. (Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, February 12, 2002) To supporters of reform, the philosophical justification for reform is that it would increase political equality. The haves would no longer possess a louder voice in the political process than the have-nots. Money would no longer exert the undue influence on political decisions that many believe it does today. The second statement, offered by an opponent of reform, does not address the question of equality but, rather, focuses on the threat to freedom of expression posed by campaign finance reform. If advocates of misguided campaign finance reform are successful in passing this legislation, they will have done nothing to prevent future campaign abuses. Instead, they will be successful in eroding and handicapping Americans right to free speech and the right to political expression. (Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Florida, February 12, 2002) By restricting who can say what, when, and how, campaign finance reforms potentially limit the voices of individuals and groups in political affairs. Instead of improving the political process, reforms, under this view, shut out and limit the voices of citizens. Which view is correct? Would campaign finance reforms promote political equality or would they limit political expression? The answer may well be both. While reforms would undoubtedly help to level the field between those with financial resources and those without, they might also suppress the political speech of certain groups and individuals. How citizens sort out this conflict is the subject of this book. This book is the first to perform a systematic analysis of public opinion on campaign finance reform. From a theoretical standpoint, the book demonstrates the critical role that affect toward social and political groups plays in structuring public opinion on issues of public policy. Analyzing a series of survey experiments embedded in a national survey of the American electorate, we seek to explain the structure and stability of public attitudes toward the important and controversial issue of campaign finance reform. Our central thesis is that public opinion on matters of campaign finance is group-centric: structured by the feelings that individuals hold toward the groups whose political rights and political influence they believe are at stake. 2

10 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 3 To escape the constraints of existing survey data, we designed our own national survey on campaign finance. 3 Analyzing this new and unique data source, we first demonstrate, through a carefully crafted experiment, how the public thinks about campaign finance. Do elite arguments about campaign finance resonate at the mass level and, if so, to what extent do group affect and issue frames structure public opinion on this issue? Second, we examine what the public knows about the current campaign finance system and how such knowledge shapes public attitudes toward reform. Third, we demonstrate what the public thinks about campaign finance reform. We show which reform proposals the public would most like to see enacted and, more importantly, we identify and explain the determinants of support for reform. Finally, we investigate how much the public cares about campaign finance reform and how group and issue frames affect the salience of campaign finance reform in the public mind. The State of Campaign Finance Reform In March of 2002, Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), nearly seven years after the first version of the McCain-Feingold reform bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate. The BCRA is, without question, the most significant piece of campaign finance legislation to be adopted since the early 1970s. Among BCRA s most controversial provisions are its ban on soft-money contributions to national and congressional party committees and its prohibition of electioneering communication, which includes the broadcast of both express advocacy and issue-advocacy advertisements, by corporations and unions within sixty days of general elections and thirty days of primary elections. Critics allege that BCRA stifles political speech, limits issue advocacy, and weakens political parties. Supporters claim that it helps to promote a healthier and more egalitarian political system by reducing the power of special interests. The legal challenge to BCRA was immediate. Indeed, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and others filed suit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in U.S. District Court on the same day that BCRA was signed into law. In all, eleven lawsuits with no fewer than eighty plaintiffs were filed. 4 In May of 2003, after months of deliberation, a three-judge panel from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rendered the first ruling concerning the constitutionality of BCRA. The District Court issued a mixed decision, striking down portions of BCRA while upholding others. After issuing its sixteen-hundred-page opinion, the

11 4 Chapter 1 District Court promptly stayed its own decision. Given the urgency created by the 2004 presidential election, the Supreme Court agreed to hear McConnell et al. v. FEC et al. on an expedited basis. In September of 2002, the Supreme Court, as if to acknowledge the gravity of the case, reserved four hours to hear oral arguments. On December 10, 2003, the Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated ruling. By a narrow 5 4 majority, the Court upheld BCRA s ban on large soft-money contributions as well as its restrictions concerning electioneering communication. While the legal fate of BCRA is no longer uncertain, the implications of this landmark legislation both intended and otherwise remain to be seen. There is no guarantee, of course, that BCRA will achieve its goal of limiting the influence of political money. If, as Issacharoff and Karlan (1999) contend, political money, like water, has to go somewhere, then BCRA may succeed in redirecting the flow of political money yet fail in stemming its powerful current. There will always be monied interests who seek to influence public policy, just as there will always be candidates who need money to compete effectively in modern campaigns. As a result, it is unlikely that BCRA, or any single piece of legislation, will forever put to rest concerns about the role of political money in our electoral system. Echoing this sentiment, the Supreme Court acknowledged that [w]e are under no illusion that BCRA will be the last congressional statement on the matter. Money, like water, will always find an outlet. What problems will arise, and how Congress will respond, are questions for another day (McConnell et al. v. FEC et al, 2003). There are also a number of unanswered questions concerning how the FEC will interpret and enforce the provisions of BCRA that were upheld. In October of 2002, Representatives Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Marty Meehan (D-MA), two of BCRA s sponsors, filed suit against the FEC, alleging that the FEC s own regulations were undermining the legislative intent of BCRA. In short, the debate over campaign finance reform is unlikely to end any time soon, ensuring that the issue of campaign finance reform will remain at the forefront of political discourse in American politics. The State of the Campaign Finance Literature The campaign finance literature is as diverse as it is large. As detailed in the next chapter, legal scholars have vigorously debated the political and constitutional merits of campaign finance reform. Researchers have examined the effects of campaign finance law on political mobilization and the representativeness of the PAC system (Gais 1998). Scholars have focused a

12 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 5 great deal on the contribution strategies of political action committees (Grier and Munger 1993; Rudolph 1999), individual citizens (Biersack et al. 2003; Brown, Powell, and Wilcox 1995), and political parties (Herrnson 1989; Sorauf 1992). 5 Political scientists have investigated questions regarding the legislative consequences of campaign contributions. Does money, for example, buy votes (Chappell 1982; Wawro 2001; Wright 1985)? Does money buy access or influence other forms of legislative activity (Langbein 1986; Hall and Wayman 1990)? Political scientists have also analyzed the electoral consequences of campaign finance reform at both federal (Goidel, Gross, and Shields 1999) and state levels (Gross and Goidel 2003). Absent from this voluminous literature, however, has been much effort to systematically model or explain public opinion on the issue of campaign finance reform. Public Opinion and Campaign Finance: What We Know Campaign finance reform is fast becoming a perennial issue in American politics. There has, consequently, been no shortage of public opinion polls on this issue. Since 1997, the Gallup organization alone has conducted nearly a dozen national polls to measure public attitudes toward campaign finance. 6 Reform advocates, such as the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), have also commissioned polls to gauge public sentiment toward reform. 7 Such polls have documented public perceptions and knowledge of the campaign finance system, public support for campaign finance reform, as well as the importance or salience of this issue in the public mind. Collectively, these polls have produced a number of stylized facts about public opinion on matters of campaign finance. First, we know that the public believes there is a problem with the campaign finance system (Primo 2002a; Shaw and Ragland 2000). Polls consistently suggest that the public is disenchanted with the current system, believing that government officials are more responsive to the interests of political action committees and contributors than to those of their constituents or the nation as a whole. When asked whether they thought a representative was more likely to take a phone call from a large contributor from outside his district or from a constituent that did not contribute, only 20% of Americans chose the latter option (Center for Responsive Politics [CRP] 1997). Similarly, when asked whether elected officials in Washington are mostly influenced by what is in the best interests of the country or by the pressure they receive from major campaign contributors, 77% of those surveyed chose the latter (Saad 1997a).

13 6 Chapter 1 Second, we know that the public supports both the abstract idea of reform and several specific reform proposals (Primo 2002a; Shaw and Ragland 2000). Polls show that 64% of Americans believe that the campaign finance system needs either major reform or a complete overhaul (Moore 1999) and that 65 72% favor the passage of new campaign finance laws (Gallup Poll 2002; Moore 2001a). Several reform proposals also enjoy popular support among the American electorate. A sizable majority of Americans favor limiting the amount of money candidates can raise and spend, limiting business and labor contributions; limiting television advertising, banning soft money, and requiring candidates to raise a certain percentage of money in their own states (CBS News Poll 2002; CRP 1997; Saad 1997b; Simmons 2000; Moore 2001a). The observations that the public is dissatisfied with the current system and that it believes something ought to be done about it should, taken by themselves, be encouraging to reform advocates. Indeed, proponents of reform have relied on public opinion data to bolster their case in federal court. Robert Shapiro, an eminent political scientist at Columbia University, was recently asked by those defending BCRA to provide expert testimony concerning public opinion and campaign finance. Analyzing the existing survey data on campaign finance, including the polls cited above, Professor Shapiro concluded that the current campaign finance system does create an appearance of corruption in the public mind and that the public is largely supportive of the restrictions imposed by BCRA (Shapiro 2002). The above evidence notwithstanding, public opinion on campaign finance has, with some justification, been characterized as both ignorant and indifferent. By many accounts, the public does not seem to be very interested in this issue. Recent polls have found that 51 62% of Americans have reported following the debate over campaign finance either not too closely or not at all (Moore 2001b; Washington Post Poll 2002). This inattention is reflected quite clearly through the public s lack of knowledge concerning the specifics of campaign finance. Of five questions designed to measure the public s knowledge of basic campaign finance issues, the CRP (1997) survey found that fewer than 1% of respondents correctly answered all five questions, 12% knew the right answers to three or more questions, 23% correctly answered two questions, and 65% answered either one or fewer questions correctly. 8 In addition to being woefully uninformed about campaign finance, the public does not seem to assign much importance or salience to the issue. When ranking the importance of nineteen policy issues, the public recently ranked campaign finance reform eighteenth on the list (Moore 2001a).

14 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 7 When judging how much effort the government should devote to reforming the campaign finance system, either in the abstract or in direct comparison to other issues, the public ascribes little salience to campaign finance reform. Only 39% of the public believe that Congress should treat campaign finance reform as a high or top priority (Moore 1999), although, as our analysis will later demonstrate, this percentage has increased in recent years. A majority of Americans also believe that campaign finance reform should receive less government attention than other issues like the economy, terrorism, crime, education, Social Security, international trade, and balancing the budget (CRP 1997; Los Angeles Times Poll 2002; NBC News Poll 2002). Finally, the public is rather pessimistic about whether new campaign finance laws will actually work. Polls indicate that 61 67% of Americans believe that the power of special interests will continue undeterred (CBS News Poll 2002; Gallup Poll 2002). Opponents of reform are quick to interpret the public s apparent ambivalence as evidence that the public does not really care about reform and to use it as an argument for preserving the status quo. Critics of BCRA have also used public opinion data to buttress their arguments in federal court. Q. Whitfield Ayres, a former political scientist and current president of a national public opinion and public affairs research firm, was asked by the plaintiffs in the BCRA case to offer his assessment of public opinion concerning campaign finance. Citing the public s shallow and poorly informed opinions about campaign finance, the lack of salience this issue has or appears to have to the public, and the public s belief that campaign finance reforms will not reduce the power of special interests, Ayres concluded that the restrictions imposed by BCRA will not reduce the appearance of corruption in the public mind (Ayres 2002). Moreover, David Primo, a political scientist at the University of Rochester, testified that there is no empirical link between campaign spending and citizens degree of trust in government (Primo 2002b). In sum, both sides in the legal debate over campaign finance reform can selectively and strategically use public opinion data to advance their position. Public Opinion and Campaign Finance: What We Don t Know and Why It Matters Information about public opinion on campaign finance has, until now, been limited largely to the survey marginals reported by commercial polling organizations. Though informative, such data provide only a cursory and descriptive account of public attitudes toward campaign finance. As a result, we still possess a rather shallow and incomplete

15 8 Chapter 1 understanding of public opinion on this issue. We know, for example, that a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the current system and support campaign finance reform. However, we know virtually nothing about the determinants of support for reform. To what extent is reform driven by attitudes toward government, partisanship, socioeconomic status, and, most importantly, considerations of group affect? If reformers wish to preserve or increase existing levels of public support for their agenda, they must first develop a deeper understanding of the factors that shape such support. We also know that the public is quite uninformed about the details of the campaign finance system. However, we do not know if such ignorance is politically consequential. Does campaign finance knowledge influence public attitudes toward reform? Is, for example, support for reform higher among the politically sophisticated? Does political sophistication moderate the effects of group affect on campaign finance attitudes? If not, efforts to educate the public about the campaign finance system may be misguided. If so, however, informing the public about the current system may be an effective way to mobilize additional public support for reform. Polls consistently find that the public does not assign much importance to campaign finance reform. Yet we know little about what, if anything, can be done to increase the salience of this issue. Are some arguments or frames more successful than others in promoting the salience of campaign finance reform? To what extent do considerations of group affect shape this issue s salience? Again, if reformers are to preserve or increase support for their agenda, they must be able to identify and understand the factors that contribute to greater issue salience in the public mind. Above all, we know precious little about the psychology of campaign finance attitudes. That is, how do ordinary citizens think and process information about this issue? Received wisdom suggests that public opinion on public policy issues is shaped by elite discourse (Zaller 1992) and frames (Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997). Political elites have structured the debate over campaign finance reform along two alternative frames. Apologists of reform often frame the issue in terms of political equality and argue that campaign finance reform is needed to reduce the influence of special interests in the political process (Fiss 1996; Foley 1994; Freedman 2000; Hasen 1996, 1999; Neuborne 1999a, 1999b; Raskin and Bonifaz 1993; Sunstein 1993, 1994). Conversely, opponents of reform tend to frame the issue in terms of political speech and portray campaign finance regulations as unconstitutional violations of free speech (Bopp and Coleson 2002; BeVier 1985; McConnell 2001; Smith 1996, 1997, 1998,

16 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism , 2001; Sullivan 1998). Do these reified arguments resonate among average citizens? The arguments underlying both sides of the campaign finance reform debate are premised upon two basic assumptions. First, reformers assume that by increasing public concern over group influence, they will increase support for reform. Second, opponents of reform assume that by increasing support for group rights, they will decrease support for reform. In the analyses to follow, we subject both of these assumptions to empirical scrutiny. Public opinion on campaign finance remains an enigma. The public clearly dislikes the current system and favors reform, yet, at the same time, pays little attention to the issue, knows even less about it, and assigns it little importance. Contributing to this puzzle is the fact that political scientists have, to date, made virtually no effort to model or explain public attitudes toward campaign finance reform. 9 Given the public s seemingly ambivalent attitudes, though, why should we care about public opinion concerning campaign finance reform? We submit that there are several reasons. First, from a legal perspective, public opinion on this issue is important to understand because it has played a critical role in the Supreme Court s justification of campaign finance regulations for nearly thirty years. In its landmark decision in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Court upheld limits on campaign contributions on the grounds that; [o]f almost equal concern as the danger of actual quid pro quo arrangements is the impact of the appearance of corruption stemming from public awareness of the opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large individual financial contributions. By tying the legality of certain campaign finance regulations to public perceptions, the Court affords great legal weight to public opinion on this issue. Moreover, the fact that public opinion experts were recently called to testify on behalf of both the plaintiffs and the defendants in the legal fight over BCRA suggests that public opinion continues to be legally consequential. Second, from a political perspective, we know that public opinion, broadly defined, has a great deal of influence on the scope and content of public policy, as we might expect in a representative democracy (Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 2002; Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995). Within the domain of campaign finance, recent work suggests that public opinion about campaign finance affects both presidential and congressional vote choice (Box-Steffensmeier, Grant, and Rudolph 2003). Third, as we will argue throughout this book, public opinion about campaign finance is of great importance from a theoretical perspective because it provides new insight into the question of how citizens resolve conflicts between competing democratic values.

17 10 Chapter 1 The Issue of Campaign Finance Reform: A Lesson in Value Conflict Virtually every strand of democratic theory calls for the protection and promotion of certain fundamental rights and values. The widespread commitment of a people to a shared set of values provides the foundation upon which democratic societies rest (McClosky and Zaller 1984). American democracy is grounded in the commitment of its citizens to a set of core values, including liberty, equality, order, economic individualism, and limited government (Feldman 1988; Kinder and Sanders 1996; Kluegel and Smith 1986; McClosky and Zaller 1984). Despite popular support for each of these abstract values, it is clear that democratic values do not always complement each other in the political process. In fact, during the formation of public policy, the promotion of one value may actually result in the diminution of another. Policy choices involving questions of civil rights and civil liberties are particularly controversial because they often bring democratic values into conflict with one another. Consider the question of whether noxious groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, should be allowed to hold public rallies. This decision is complicated by the fact that competing democratic values are at stake, as one must balance a group s right to free speech against the possible disruption of social order (Gibson 1987; Gibson and Bingham 1985; Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997; Marcus et al. 1995; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). Similarly, racial policies such as affirmative action inspire spirited debate because they involve conflict between the core values of individualism and egalitarianism (Alvarez and Brehm 1997; Kinder and Sanders 1996). Policy choices on abortion are made difficult because of conflict between the right to privacy and the right to life (Alvarez and Brehm 1995). Quite apart from conflicting with each other, democratic values are sometimes at odds with themselves. Sniderman et al. (1996) suggest that, on some redistributive policies, there may be internal conflict between different conceptions of equality such as equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Why do conflicts over democratic rights occur? Sniderman and his colleagues (Sniderman et al. 1996) argue that democratic dissensus is best explained by a contestability thesis. Clashes over democratic rights are inevitable, they submit, because democratic values are inherently contestable. The politics of rights is driven by the irreducible diversity of values in politics and the unavoidability of their coming, in one form or another and at some point or other, into conflict with one another (11).

18 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 11 The contestability thesis does not presume that conflicts over rights can be easily resolved through a process of social learning in which citizens develop a better understanding of and a deeper appreciation for democratic norms. Rather, they suggest, value pluralism leads to conflict between equally important and equally legitimate rights. Under the contestability thesis, disputes over claims to rights are attributed as much to properties of the rights themselves as they are to inadequacies of individual citizens. We should not be surprised, they conclude, that policy choices may lead to conflict over democratic values. Political scientists and political psychologists have exhibited considerable interest in analyzing the question of citizens commitment to democratic values (Kuklinski et al. 1991; McClosky 1964; McClosky and Brill 1983; McClosky and Zaller 1984; Marcus et al. 1995; Sniderman et al. 1989; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). A common problem in democratic societies, though, is that value pluralism may lead to a clash of rights (Sniderman et al. 1996). Of central concern to democratic theory then is the question of how citizens resolve conflicts between competing democratic values (Alvarez and Brehm 1995, 1997; Gibson and Bingham 1985; Nelson, Clawson, and Oxley 1997; Peffley, Knigge, and Hurwitz 2001; Sniderman et al. 1996; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). The issue of campaign finance reform affords a novel yet natural theoretical opportunity to consider these important questions in the context of a controversial and contemporaneous policy debate. The issue of campaign finance reform involves a conflict between core democratic values. Indeed, as observed by one legal scholar, the issue of campaign finance reform requires a choice between two of our most powerful traditions: equality in the realm of democratic polity, and liberty in the realm of political speech (Sullivan 1997, 667). This sentiment has been echoed by political elites as well; [w]hat we have is two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can t have both (Gephardt 1997). If, as Gephardt and others have suggested, citizens must choose between the values of expression and equality, we must concern ourselves with the crucial question of how individuals make this choice. When evaluating the issue of campaign finance reform, do people assign more weight to one of these values than the other? To what extent, and under what circumstances, are citizens willing to sacrifice one of these values in order to promote the other? In short, how do individuals resolve the conflict between expression and equality? In the balance of this chapter, we develop a theory designed to answer these important questions.

19 12 Chapter 1 Group Affect and the Structure of Public Opinion Political psychologists have long noted that the public, while extremely supportive of democratic principles in the abstract, is less willing to endorse such principles in concrete political situations (Chong 1993; Kuklinski et al. 1991; Marcus et al. 1995; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). This gap between principle and practice exists, in large part, because politics does not take place in a vacuum; [c]lashes over rights take place not in the abstract but in the crucible of policy choices (Sniderman et al. 1996, 26). Since policy choices often carry positive or negative consequences for particular social and political groups in society, citizens support for democratic principles in such situations is often shaped by their affect toward the groups involved. Analyzing in-depth interview data, Chong (1993) reports that citizens, when rendering judgments involving democratic values, are influenced by two types of considerations. While individuals are influenced by considerations of the rights at stake, they are also heavily influenced by considerations of the group whose rights are at stake. Marcus and his colleagues (1995) find that tolerance judgments are influenced by standing decisions individuals attitudes toward the rights in question and by contemporary information, namely, the nature of the group whose rights are in question. Similarly, Kuklinski and his colleagues (1991) suggest that attitudes concerning the application of democratic principles are based on cognitive judgments concerning the right in question and on affective judgments toward the group in question. Affective reactions toward the group in question, they find, exert a greater influence on individuals tolerance judgments. The importance of social and political groups in structuring American public opinion cannot be overestimated. After observing that most Americans lack ideological constraint, Converse (1964) suggests that visible social groupings are a central object in belief systems. Political parties are a classic example. Among the American electorate, partisan identification and stereotypes act as influential heuristics as individuals process information and make political decisions (Huckfeldt et al. 1999; Miller and Shanks 1996; Rahn 1993). The connection between party identification and vote choice, though never weak, appears to be strengthening, as selfidentified Democrats are increasingly less likely to vote for Republican candidates and vice versa (Bartels 2000). As partisan elites have become more polarized in recent years, the importance and salience of mass partisanship has only increased (Hetherington 2001). Group sentiment also structures public opinion toward public policy issues. As argued in one recent study, [p]ublic opinion on matters of gov-

20 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 13 ernment policy is group-centric: shaped in powerful ways by the attitudes citizens possess toward the social groups they see as the principal beneficiaries (or victims) of the policy (Nelson and Kinder 1996). In essence, individuals attitudes toward particular policies are shaped by whether the groups impacted by those policies are political friends or foes. Citizens tend to support policies perceived to benefit groups they like and oppose policies perceived to benefit groups they dislike. Reference groups are important elements of political discourse because individuals ability to efficiently organize and evaluate information on complex policy issues is greatly enhanced when such issues are framed with reference to particular social groups (Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). The group-centric nature of public opinion has been widely documented. Individuals willingness to support a group s constitutional rights is conditioned by their feelings toward the group in question (Kuklinski et al. 1991; Marcus et al. 1995; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). Considerations of group interest shape individuals attitudes toward the protection of language rights, resulting in the application of a double standard toward different linguistic groups (Sniderman et al. 1989). Group-centric effects have surfaced in people s attitudes toward government assistance to the poor. Specifically, individuals attitudes toward welfare programs are shaped by their attitudes toward the poor (Feldman 1983; Kluegel and Smith 1986). Group-based judgments have also been shown to influence the relationship between individuals economic perceptions and presidential evaluations (Mutz and Mondak 1997). Voters are more likely to support the president if they feel their groups have received their fair share of economic benefits in comparison to other groups in society. Although the effects of group-centrism on public opinion are often quite strong, these effects are not equally powerful in all cases; [t]he importance of group sentiment in public opinion depends on how issues are framed in elite debate (Nelson and Kinder 1996, 1058). Nelson and Kinder argue that group-centric effects are more likely to occur when issue frames highlight the connection between government policy and a particular group. They provide empirical support for this contention through a series of survey experiments. For example, they report that attitudes toward gays have a much larger impact on attitudes toward government spending on AIDS research when the issue frame implies that AIDS sufferers are responsible for contracting the disease than when it does not. Similarly, they find that attitudes toward the poor exert more influence on attitudes toward government assistance when the issue frame implies that poor people are freeloaders than when it does not. In sum, Nelson and

21 14 Chapter 1 Kinder find that issue frames moderate the effects of group affect on policy attitudes. Research suggests that the effects of group affect on policy attitudes may also be moderated by individual differences such as political sophistication. Analyzing citizens tolerance judgments, Marcus and his colleagues (1995) report that political experts and novices differ in two respects. First, like many researchers before them, they find that experts are more tolerant than novices (McClosky and Brill 1983; McClosky and Zaller 1984; Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982). More importantly, Marcus and colleagues find that experts and novices differ in the process through which they make tolerance judgments. In particular, tolerance judgments made by political experts are found to be less responsive to contemporary information such as group threats. That is, their tolerance judgments are less sensitive to group-centric considerations. A Group-Centric Theory of Campaign Finance Attitudes Our theory begins with the proposition that social and political groups play an important role in structuring public opinion toward policy issues. The effects of group affect should be particularly pronounced in public attitudes toward matters of campaign finance, we believe, because of the central role that groups play in the campaign finance system. If politics is the game of who gets what and how much, then interest groups are among the most active and experienced players. According to the Federal Election Commission (2001), PACs (polical action committees) and other interest groups contributed $245.5 million to congressional candidates during the election cycle. These contributions, most of which went to incumbents, were up 19% from the amount given in the election cycle. PAC contributions accounted for 32% of the money raised by House candidates during the 2000 campaign. Not included in these figures are the millions of additional dollars spent by interest groups in the form of independent expenditures and issue advocacy ads. Clearly, interest groups play a prominent and highly visible role in our campaign finance system. The issue of campaign finance reform involves basic questions of influence and rights. Do economic inequalities allow some groups to have more than their fair share of political influence? Would tighter campaign finance regulations help to reduce such influence and promote political equality, or would they unfairly restrict groups right to freedom of expression? The

22 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 15 answers to these questions, we submit, will depend upon whose influence and whose rights citizens believe are at stake. As noted earlier, Americans are extremely supportive of democratic principles in the abstract but are often less willing to endorse those principles in concrete political situations. We argue that attitudes toward campaign finance will be powerfully shaped by contextual information such as the nature of the group in question. Within the interest group community, there are groups representing the entire range of the ideological spectrum. There are, therefore, some groups that each individual likes and some that he or she dislikes. Individuals feelings toward groups are politically consequential; valence toward the group conditions how strongly people endorse real world instances of lofty democratic ideals (Kuklinski et al. 1991, 14). In the context of campaign finance, we expect that individuals will express greater concern about the influence exerted by interest groups that they dislike than about the influence exerted by groups that they like. Conversely, we expect that individuals will voice greater support for the rights of interest groups that they like than for the rights of groups that they dislike. A real-life example may help to fix ideas. Democrats, for example, commonly complain that large sums of corporate money give big business undue influence in the political process. Money spent by labor unions, on the other hand, deserves constitutional protection as political speech. Since labor unions have traditionally represented a core constituency in the Democratic Party, it is not surprising that Democratic leaders should be more interested in protecting the voice of labor than that of the business community. Republicans are equally dexterous in their political reasoning. While they vigorously oppose tougher restrictions on corporate money in the name of free speech, they simultaneously wish to reduce the political influence of labor unions. This is group-centrism at work. Do the effects of group affect on campaign finance attitudes depend upon how the issue itself is framed? In other words, is the likelihood that citizens will apply a double standard in their political judgments contingent upon how the issue is framed? Though we expect to find evidence of group-centrism regardless of the issue frame, we suspect that the effects of group-centrism will be less pronounced when campaign finance is framed as an issue of political speech and rights than when it is framed as an issue of political equality and influence. The language of rights, by definition, conveys a certain sense of universal entitlement. Issue frames that employ such language may inspire greater attitudinal consistency by encouraging citizens to engage in principled rather than situational reasoning

23 16 Chapter 1 (Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Terms like equality and influence, on the other hand, invariably invite comparisons between particular groups. Since frames that underscore the connections between government policies and particular groups enhance group-centric effects (Nelson and Kinder 1996), we expect the effects of group affect to be more pronounced when campaign finance is framed in terms of group equality or group influence. The effects of group affect on campaign finance attitudes will, we believe, also be moderated by individual-level attributes such as political sophistication. Consistent with research on political tolerance, we expect that group-centric considerations will exert less influence on the attitudes of political experts than on those of political novices. Finally, when evaluating the issue of campaign finance reform and specific reform proposals, how do individuals resolve the conflict between the democratic values of expression and equality? In forming their opinions on this issue, do citizens weight one value more heavily than the other? A group-centric theory of campaign finance attitudes predicts that individuals decisional calculus will be influenced by their affect toward the group in question. When the group referent is a liked group, we anticipate that support for group rights will be weighted more heavily in citizens judgments about campaign finance reform than concern for group influence. Conversely, when evaluating a disliked group, we expect that concern for group influence will be weighted more heavily than support for group rights. The Plan of the Book This chapter has introduced our central research questions and laid the theoretical foundations for our analysis. In chapter 2 we take a closer look at the issue of campaign finance reform and discuss how it has been framed by elites. In particular, we distinguish between the political speech frame and the political equality frame. Chapter 2 discusses the concept of framing and the psychological processes through which frames are believed to shape public opinion. Chapter 3 explains the fundamentals of our research design and discusses the analytical strategy that motivates our experimental analysis. Informed by the political tolerance literature, chapter 3 underscores the value of content-controlled measurement instruments and describes an experimental procedure that enables us to develop such instruments to measure individuals campaign finance attitudes. Chapter 3 reports the results from the self-anchoring stage of our experiment and provides a

24 Campaign Finance Reform and the Thesis of Group-Centrism 17 unique look at public affect toward a number of prominent interest groups. The self-anchoring stage of our experiment provides us with information about individuals affect toward particular interest groups. In chapter 4 we exploit this information and manipulate interest group referents in a series of attitudinal questions about group rights and group influence in the campaign finance system. Chapter 4 tests our group-centric theory by analyzing the extent to which group affect shapes individuals attitudes toward group rights and group influence. Chapter 4 also investigates whether the effects of group-centrism are moderated by factors such as issue frames and political sophistication. Chapter 5 explores the depths and sources of public support for campaign finance reform. In this chapter, we investigate whether individuals attitudes concerning group rights and group influence are politically consequential by examining the extent to which citizens commitment to the principles of expression and equality actually shapes their policy preferences on the issue of campaign finance reform. Chapter 5 develops a statistical model that allows us to test competing hypotheses about the determinants of support for campaign finance reform. Particular attention is given to analyzing how group affect influences the weight that citizens assign to particular values in their political judgments. Chapter 6 takes up the question of how much the public cares about campaign finance reform. This chapter reports the results of a second survey-experiment in which we examine how issue frames affect the salience of campaign finance reform in the public mind. While chapter 5 demonstrates that equality-based arguments increase support for campaign finance reform, chapter 6 investigates what types of arguments or frames are most effective in promoting the salience of campaign finance reform. Our experiment examines whether such salience is increased more by arguments that focus on the role of money in politics or by those that focus on achieving equality of voice for all citizens. Finally, chapter 6 analyzes the determinants of issue salience, and the extent to which such factors are conditioned by group affect. Chapter 7 reemphasizes the importance of group affect in structuring the public s campaign finance attitudes. The chapter then revisits the congressional debate over BCRA as a means of demonstrating how the groupcentric thinking that underlies mass opinion on campaign finance reform can be traced to elite discourse. Chapter 7 concludes by relating our findings to the ongoing debate over campaign finance reform.