I am pleased to welcome to ELB Book Corner David Primo and Jeff Milyo, writing about their new book, Campaign Finance and American Democracy: What The Public Really Thinks and Why It Matters (U Chicago Press 2020). Here is their first of four posts:

We are grateful to Rick Hasen for inviting us to discuss our new University of Chicago Press book Campaign Finance and American Democracy: What the Public Really Thinks and Why It Matters. We have collaborated on campaign finance research for over twenty years. This book takes what we have learned during that time—as well as new survey data emerging from our participation in the Persily-Bauer-Ginsberg campaign finance task force—to construct the most comprehensive look at public opinion about campaign finance to date.

Why does public opinion about money in politics merit a book-length treatment? Since the US Supreme Court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, the foundation of campaign finance law has largely rested on concerns about how campaign contributions lead to quid pro quo corruption or the “appearance” of such corruption. Concerns about appearances place public perceptions front-and-center in the campaign finance debate.

Campaign finance is sui generis among policy issues in that public opinion determines the constitutional permissibility of regulations that otherwise restrict political speech and participation. The Court, however, has been content to assume that campaign finance laws work in the ways reformers promise, reducing corruption and its appearance. While this may seem self-evident, science demands actual evidence—hence, the importance of the questions we ask in this book.

These questions can be boiled down to

• What does the public know about money in politics?
• What does it think about money in politics?
• Do campaign finance laws influence these attitudes?
• Why do the answers to the above matter for American politics?

In today’s post, we answer the first question. In 2015 and 2016, we surveyed Americans as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to understand their views on campaign finance. The first thing we learned is that the American public is woefully ignorant about money in politics. Americans do about as well in answering questions about the basics of campaign finance law as a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at possible answers.

Even worse, Americans also buy into false narratives about money in politics. More than three-quarters of respondents in 2015 and 2016 thought that super PACs accounted for over half of campaign spending in the most proximate election season—in reality, super PAC spending was 9% of total spending in 2014 and 15% in 2016. Supermajorities of Americans also believe that “elective offices are for sale to the highest bidder” and “campaign contributions are the equivalent of bribes.”

It’s no surprise that the public is uninformed and misinformed about money in politics, though the extent of the ignorance and misinformation is a bit jarring. What may be surprising, though, is that this ignorance has consequences for policy preferences. The less you know about campaign finance laws, the more likely you are to support stricter laws. Buying into the false narrative that super PACs are “flooding” the campaign finance system also leads to greater support for tougher campaign finance laws.

There are many more findings in chapter 3 of our book about public knowledge, or lack thereof, including how little the public knows about just how much of their personal information is publicly revealed after they make a campaign contribution.

Knowing little about campaign finance does not stop Americans from having opinions on the role of money in the American political system. In our next blog post, we’ll delve into what the public thinks about the campaign finance system and the prospects for reform.