From the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Taxpayers ignore public campaign funding
By Adam Sichko
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
03/12/2007

WASHINGTON — Fifteen years ago, one out of every five taxpayers designated a dollar of their taxes for the U.S. presidential campaign fund.

But since then, the number of those checking that box on their IRS forms has plummeted by 43 percent, pushing the publicly funded account to near-record lows.

Like their constituents, more presidential candidates are bypassing public financing — to the point where the system designed to reduce democracy's cost is becoming useless, experts say.

"This is a system right now that, for the most part, is no longer considered an advantage to a candidate," said Anthony Corrado Jr., a campaign finance expert at Colby College in Maine. "The majority of candidates have little incentive to participate."

Congress established public financing for presidential campaigns in the 1970s as a response to the Watergate scandal during Richard Nixon's presidency. It was widely heralded as the best way to erase the influence of money in politics and make campaign fundraising as transparent as possible.

Taxpayers can designate $3 of their taxes to go into the presidential campaign fund, managed by the Treasury Department. Doing so does not reduce taxpayers' refunds or increase their taxes.

Candidates can either bypass the fund and collect private donations — or they can accept public funding and the spending limits that go with it.

Corrado believes that the failure to update the system has made public funding outdated and impractical, so much so that it gives candidates incentives not to take part. Instead, they're stockpiling private donations and girding for a record campaign that analysts believe will top $1 billion in spending between the two major-party nominees.

"There's a pragmatism that says, 'We need to do what we need to do to win,'" he said.

Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based watchdog group, said candidates "don't have much of an alternative. … If they decide not to play the game (of raising private money), they can feel good about themselves — but they're going to lose."

A sudden shift

It used to be different.

In fact, the system had functioned fairly well until recently, Corrado said.

Problems surfaced in 1996, when a competitive primary forced Republican candidate Bob Dole to spend nearly all of his public funding. That left him short on options when Democratic opponent Bill Clinton — who had no primary competition — spent $22 million "defining" Dole in the summer lull before the fall campaign. Dole never recovered.

Wanting to avoid a repeat in 2000, George W. Bush became the first person elected president who passed up public funding in the primary elections. He outspent Democratic opponent Al Gore by almost 2-to-1.

In 2004, both Bush and his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, relied on private funding in the primary season, to the tune of about $500 million combined. For the fall, both accepted public funding.

In the current campaign, some big-name candidates such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., already have said they'll bypass public funds in both the primaries and the general election.

A few minor candidates probably will have to rely on public funding, but experts predict the 2008 elections will further the case for why the system needs to be reformed.

On Thursday, eight advocacy groups, among them Common Cause and the League of Women Voters, sent letters to all 17 major-party candidates for president asking for a commitment to accept public funding for the general election campaign, if their opponent also agrees to do so.

The request stems from a proposal by one of the prominent Democratic aspirants, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. The Federal Election Commission ruled last month that Obama can start collecting private donations for the general election, with the option to fully return them. Obama said he would accept public funding if his Republican opponent does the same.

Calls for change

The only route for the system to be fixed runs through Congress, said McGehee of Campaign Legal Center. She is among those who signed the letter to the candidates.

"At this point, it's kind of a way to keep a heartbeat, but it'll be a very faint heartbeat unless Congress acts," she said. "We have a broken system."

Bills have been filed in Congress suggesting several key adjustments:

— At least doubling the size of the $85 million grant available to each major party's nominee.

— Eliminating state-by-state spending limits.

— Letting candidates have earlier access to the money.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., plans to introduce public financing legislation this week that applies to Congress.

Public funding "gives the challenger a fair chance. And it says to the main candidates, 'You don't belong in the fundraising business,'" Durbin said. "People are fed up with the amount of money one has to spend to be elected."

To check or not to

The decline in taxpayer participation is rooted in several issues — including a simple one, said Stephen Weissman, associate policy director at the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

"There's been no public education about what the checkoff is: what is the public finance system, how does it work?" Weissman said. "Probably most people by now who are doing tax returns never heard of it."

The people and computer software programs that prepare many tax returns today often automatically check "no" in the donation box, without the taxpayer even being aware that there's an option, Weissman said. TurboTax, the most popular tax software, didn't change its default setting from "no" until halfway through last year's tax season, he said.

Many taxpayers also may be disillusioned because the system isn't working. But leaving that box unchecked on income tax forms isn't the way to relieve frustration with money in campaigns, advocates say.

"I absolutely think people should check that box because the whole goal in this is to say that we don't believe the presidency should be put back on the auction block," McGehee said.

"All gloves are off if (public funding) dies — kind of like you're in a ballroom brawl for cash," she added. "Maybe that serves Americans who are fabulously wealthy, but for most, that's not a system responsive to their needs."