Stifling Political Competition: How Government Has Rigged the System to Benefit Demopublicans and Exclude Third Parties

143 Pages·2009·0.991 MB·English

by  James T. Bennett (auth.)

Stifling Political Competition
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James T. Bennett
Stifling Political
Competition
How Government Has Rigged the System
to Benefit Demopublicans and Exclude
Third Parties
1 3
JamesT.Bennett
GeorgeMasonUniversity
Fairfax,VA
USA
[email protected]
ISSN:0924-4700
ISBN:978-0-387-09820-3 e-ISBN:978-0-387-09821-0
DOI10.1007/978-0-387-09821-0
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2008939848
#SpringerScienceþBusinessMedia,LLC2009
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Acknowledgments
In1968,whenGeorgeCorleyWallaceranforpresidentasathird-partycandi-
date,hemadeastatementthatIhavelongremembered–‘‘there’snotadime’s
worth of difference’’ between Democrats and Republicans. Arguably, history
hasmoreoftenthannotprovedWallacecorrect–thusthisbook.
Iamgratefultomanyfortheirassistancewithandsupportoftheresearch
andeditingofthiswork.Theresearchwouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthe
generous financial support of the Sunmark Foundation and help from the
Locke Institute. Research assistance was provided by William Adams and
Steven M. Davis. I also owe profuse thanks to my editor, Bill Kauffman, as
Iamindebtedtohimforsignificantcontributionstothisstudy.
Finally, I must express my unbounded gratitude to my wonderful wife of
morethan40years,Sally,towhomIdedicatethisbook.Onlyasaintcouldhave
put up with my ranting and raving about politics and economics (and life in
general)formorethanfourdecades.Equallyimportant,shehasneverreadany
bookthatIhavewritten,andthatformeisatrueblessing–thelastthingthat
Iwanttodoafterworkistocomehomeanddebatemyviewsanddefendmy
work.SallyistheinspirationformuchofwhatIdowellandisblamelessforthe
rest.Ifonlyeveryhusbandweresolucky,theworldwouldbeamuchhappier
place.
GeorgeMasonUniversity JamesT.Bennett
Fairfax,Virginia,USA
v
Contents
Acknowledgments ........................................... v
1 Introduction............................................. 1
2 TheAmericanSuspicionofParties ........................... 5
3 NoCompetitionAllowedorHeWhoControlstheBallotControls
theElection ............................................. 23
4 ThenAlongCameFECA.................................... 57
5 FECA:TheDemopublicans’BestFriend ....................... 79
6 TheStateFeedsthePartyandthePartyFeedstheState........... 113
7 Conclusion:PullingthePlug?................................ 127
Index..................................................... 137
vii
Chapter 1
Introduction
Few institutions in America are held in such uniformly and consistently low
esteemasour politicalparties. Opinionpolls showthat Americans regard the
partiesas less trustworthy than used-carsalesmen, union officials – even law-
yers. (Yes, lawyers!) The parties are thought to be corrupt, unprincipled, and
interestedonlyinachievingandmaintainingpower,notin‘‘thepublicgood,’’
whateverthatamorphousconceptmaybe.Theyare,inshort,despised.
Yetwhenwespeakof‘‘parties’’inAmerica,wearereallytalkingaboutonly
twoparties:theDemocratsandtheRepublicans.Theformerhavetheirrootsin
Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party of the early republic; the
latter grew in the mid-1850s from the remains of the Whig, Anti-Masonic,
Liberty, and Free Soil parties. The very recitation of those Republican fore-
runnerssuggeststhetumultuousandcolorfulhistoryoftheearlypartysystem.
TheWhigsweredistinguishedbytheirsponsorshipofthe‘‘AmericanSystem’’
ofHenryClay,whichenvisionedgovernmentsupportofinternalimprovements
(roads, canals, waterways, etc.) and a national bank as a means to economic
growth.TheAnti-MasonicParty,onwhichsomanyRepublicanstrategistscut
theireyeteeth,stoodforanendtosecretsocietiesandforopennessingovern-
ment.TheLibertyPartywasabolitionist;itsawslaveryasthegreatstainonthe
Americanescutcheon,anditsoughttoerasethatstainbyemancipatingAfrican
slaves. The Free Soil Party combined a determination to stop the spread of
slavery into the western territories with a plan to encourage the settlement of
thosewesternlandsbyfreefarmerswhowouldformthebackboneoffrontier
society.
These parties were fueled by ideas, passions, and visions of what America
couldandshouldbe.Theywerenotperfect,ofcourse:theWhigswerecautious
toafault,avoidingtheissueofslaveryasfutilelyasamanmightavoidthe900-
poundgorillarompingthroughhistrophyroom,smashingeverythinginsight.
‘‘TheWhigPartydiedoftoomuchrespectabilityandnotenoughpeople,’’said
Edward Stafford, a Mississippi Republican newspaper editor.1 The Anti-
Masons, born in the furor surrounding the apparent murder of an apostate
member of the Masonic Order who had threatened to go public with the
fraternity’s secrets, were too narrowly focused on a specific historic incident
toretainanykindoflong-termrelevancy.TheLibertyPartywasperhapstoo
J.T.Bennett,StiflingPoliticalCompetition,StudiesinPublicChoice12, 1
DOI10.1007/978-0-387-09821-0_1,(cid:2)SpringerScienceþBusinessMedia,LLC2009
2 1 Introduction
radical:abolitionseemedtoogreatastepintotheunknowntomostvotersinthe
1840s.AndtheFreeSoilPartywastoosectional,tootiedtoNewEnglandand
theNorthwesttogeneratethenationwideappealnecessaryforanationalparty.
Butdespitetheseweaknesses,theseinevitableflaws,thepartiesstoodforsome-
thing.WhatacontrasttheymakewiththeDemocratsandRepublicansofour
day. And what is more, those parties waned and waxed, fought and won and
lost, in what was a relatively free marketplace of ideas and politics. They had
unobstructed access to the ballot: indeed, any party could and did run candi-
dates, without having to jump through hoops or beg the favor of the ruling
party. They operated without public subsidy, as did their opponents: none of
thepartiesevendreamtofhavingtheirconventions,candidates,andcampaigns
financedbythefederaltreasury.
Today,ofcourse,thespectrumofpoliticalopinionisforciblychanneledinto
two government-sponsored and government-protected national parties: the
DemocratsandtheRepublicans.Theyconstituteaduopoly–thatis,asituation
inwhicheconomicor(inthiscase)politicalpowerislodgedinonlytwoactors.
Theseactorsuseeverymeansattheirdisposal,firstandforemostthecoercive
andfinancialpowersofthestate,toforbidorpunishcompetitors.Ourduopoly
hassucceededinsuffocatingdebate,strikingdumbothervoices,andreducinga
once-vibrant arena of political discussion and argumentation to the anemic,
lifeless,andcontentlesspoliticswehavetoday.
In Stifling Political Competition, I examine the history and array of laws,
regulations,subsidies,andprogramsthatbenefitthemajorpartiesanddiscourage
even the possibility of a challenge to the Democrat–Republican duopoly. This
booksynthesizespoliticalscience,economics,andAmericanhistoryinamanner
thatisfranklygeneralist.
TheFounders–supremegeneralists–distrustedpoliticalparties.Nowhere
intheConstitutionarepartiesmentioned,muchlessgivenlegalprotectionor
privilege. As historian Richard Hofstadter has written, ‘‘the creators of the
firstAmericanpartysystemonbothsides,FederalistsandRepublicans,were
men who looked on parties as sores on the body politic.’’2 And yet the sores
festered, despite the warning of John Adams that ‘‘a division of the republic
intotwogreatparties...istobedreadedasthegreatestpoliticalevil.’’3
ThisbookexploreshowtheDemocratsandRepublicans,whobytheendof
the Civil War were established as the two major parties, guaranteed their
continued dominance by means to which the Founders would have objected
withthegreatestvigor.Forinstance,Iexploretheseldom-visitedhistoryofhow
thetwopartiesfortifiedtheirpositionsthroughsuchreformsastheAustralian
ballot,whichtransferredthedesignoftheballotfromprivatepoliticalpartiesto
thegovernment.Thewidespreadadoptioninthe1890softheAustralianballot
gave the dominant parties an opening through which they could suppress
challengers. This led, in short order, to ballot access laws, bans on cross-
endorsements, and other artificial boosts to the Democratic and Republican
parties.
1 Introduction 3
Overtheyears,theDemocratsandRepublicansinthestatesbecameveryskilled
atdevisingatrulyingeniousarrayofregulationsandrestrictionsthatkeepcom-
petitorsofftheballotandpresentvoterswithTweedledum-Tweedledeechoices.
Intime,arangeofmethodsdevelopedtoprotecttheduopoly:ballotaccess
laws, restrictions on strategic activities often used by minor parties, and even
direct subsidies to the parties. Most critically in modern times, the Federal
Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 (as amended in 1974 and 1976),
which was sold to the public as an act of good-government reformism that
only the most hopelessly corrupt politico or deep-pocketed lobbyist could
objectto,actuallyreinforcedthedominanceofthetwoparties.Byplacingstrict
limits on campaign contributions, subsidizing the Democratic and Republic
conventions, and filling the tills of major party candidates, FECA further
protected the two-party system – despite that system’s obvious lack of any
constitutional mandate. The parties have become almost unassailable, thanks
inlargeparttothesubsidiesandprotectionsofferedthembythegovernment–
subsidies and protections, it should be noted, that are written into law by
DemocraticandRepublicanlegislators.
The FECA of 1974 was a frank and blatant subsidy of the major parties,
whose campaigns and conventions are now federally subsidized upfront.
Thirdparties,meanwhile,areeligibleforsubsidy–butonlyiftheyattracted
more than 5% of the vote in the previous election. Insurgents get relative
pittances, but they must obey the FECA limits on individual and PAC con-
tributions, leading three preeminent scholars of American party politics to
writethat‘‘TheFECAisamajorpartyprotectionact.’’4
Intheconcludingchapter,Iexaminewhatmighthappenifthegovernment
withdrew from the field, neither subsidizing nor prohibiting a wide variety of
political parties and activities. The political scientist Theodore Lowi has said,
‘‘Oneofthebest-keptsecretsinAmericanpoliticsisthatthetwo-partysystem
haslongbeenbraindead–keptalivebysupportsystemslikestateelectorallaws
thatprotecttheestablishedpartiesfromrivalsandbyFederalsubsidiesandso-
called campaignreform. Thetwo-partysystemwould collapse inaninstantif
thetubeswerepulledandtheIV’swerecut.’’5Nowwouldn’tthatbeinteresting?
Thewaveofanti-partyalienationseemstocrestevery20yearsorso.Itlast
swept over the shorelines of American politics in 1990–92, culminating in the
Perotcampaign,andweseemtobeonthevergeofsomethingsimilar.Ifnothing
else, the Iraq War, supported as it has been by both parties, has revealed the
essentialsamenessofthetwowingsoftheduopoly.
Establishment pundits (such as David Broder of the Washington Post)
explicitly support subsidization of the two-party system as a necessary con-
ditionofAmericanrepublicanism–despitetheadmonitionsoftheFounders
against the spirit of party and faction. Third parties are consistently
demeaned and derided in the mainstream media – witness the mockery of
suchfiguresasPerotandformerMinnesotaGovernorJesseVentura–while
the eminences of the Republican and Democratic parties are treated with
wholly undue respect. A rather odd figure like Al Gore, raised in a
4 1 Introduction
Washington hotel, a pompous recycler of environmentalist cliche´s, wins
Nobel Prizes and Academy Awards; a much more substantial man of the
regulation-happyleft,consumeractivistRalphNader,who,whateverhisfaults
and misconceptions about capitalism, has actually thought hard about Amer-
ican democracy and put forth propositions worth debating, is reviled by the
establishmentthatformerlyreveredhim,andallbecausehehadthetemerity
to challenge the duopoly.
The two-party system has become a sacred cow against which no one in
respectable Washington breathes a word of criticism, but in the sticks, voters
aresickandtiredoftheduopoly.Theirrestlessness,unhappinesswiththestatus
quo,isnotasignofimmaturityorunsophistication,asestablishmenttheorists
wouldhaveit.Instead,itistheevidencethatthephilosophicalassumptionsof
theAmericanFoundersandthespiritoftheAmericanrevolutionariesof1776
arenotdead.Theymaybelatent,theymaybeunderground,theymaynotbe
visibleonthe6o’clocknews,buttheyarenotdead.
Political scientists and good-government types are aware of the general
contemptfortheduopoly.Theycanseetheevidenceeveryelectionday,when
somanyAmericansstayhome,decliningtoexercisewhattheyareincessantly
toldistheprecious rightofvoting.The responsefrom toomanyacademicsis
theproposalofridiculousgimmicks(lotteries,directpaymentstovoters,etc.)to
boostturnout.Howaboutpresentinguswithmorechoicesinstead?
Rather than relying on Rube Goldberg schemes, the simplest and most
effectivereformwouldbetoabolishthemanyhiddenandnot-so-hiddensub-
sidies that keep the two-party system alive. The two parties have rigged and
benefited from the system for so long that few observers even bother to com-
plain and few voters even notice. Observing – noticing – and informing the
readerjusthowwegothereandwhatwemightdotogetoutofthismessisthe
purposeofthisbook.
Notes
1. MichaelF.Holt,TheRiseandFalloftheAmericanWhigParty:JacksonianPoliticsandthe
OnsetoftheCivilWar(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1999),p.951.
2. RichardHofstadter,TheIdeaofaPartySystem:TheRiseofLegitimateOppositioninthe
UnitedStates,1780–1840(Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1969),p.2
3. John Adams to Jonathan Jackson, October 2, 1780, Works of John Adams, Second
President of the United States, with a Life of the Author, edited by Charles Francis
Adams,Vol.9(Boston:Little,Brown,1854),p.511.
4. StevenJ.Rosenstone,RoyL.Behr,andEdwardH.Lazarus,ThirdPartiesinAmerica:
CitizenResponsetoMajorPartyFailure(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1984,
secondedition),p.26.
5. TheodoreJ.Lowi,‘‘TowardaMoreResponsibleThree-PartySystem:DeregulatingAmer-
icanDemocracy,’’inTheStateoftheParties:TheChangingRoleofContemporaryAmer-
ican Parties, edited by John C. Green and Rick Farmer (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield,2003,fourthedition),p.354.