Sequence 6 parts 2010–2012
Money in Elections
What does campaign money buy? I follow the argument from Citizens United through the 2012 election, with some doubts about the measures people use.
Citizens United v. FEC: Yes, corporations are people, too.
Let’s get the jokes out of the way: “If corporations are people, do they get to vote?” “If corporations are people, can we start incarcerating them when they commit crimes?” “Does this mean I can marry my bank?” “Does charging a fee for incorporation constitute an unconstitutional violation of their reproductive rights?” “Thank God we’ve…
Democratic Facts and Norms: Testable Hypotheses about Citizens United
So I’ve just completed grading 55 papers on Citizens United v FEC , and though I’d kind of like to reflect on it a bit, I’m also finding that grading has totally exhausted my interest in the legal questions. (But seriously: the personhood question is a red herring!) Maybe later this week I’ll post…
Did the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act “Bend the Cost Curve” on Campaign Spending?
Apparently, it did! On Thursday, I produced a graph and some older papers in economics that made the case that there is a pretty clear trend in campaign spending that was completely unaffected by the 2002 BCRA. However, I’m a philosopher, not an econometrician, so I left off the most important part: comparing growth in…
Peter Levine on Super PAC game theory
Here’s the post: Game theory and the Super PACs . Levine points to the recent shift in campaign finance focus from the presidency to Congress, and adds nuance to a debate that is frequently overrun by absolutist intuitions: No wonder Karl Rove is spending his money on behalf of Senate Republicans. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that conservative super-PACS…
2012 is NOT the Most Expensive Election in History, in GDP-adjusted Terms
Last year, I suggested that liberal objections to Citizens United were partly justified by predictions about its effects that I didn’t see as probable . As the election draws to a close, we can begin to say whether the consensus view or my own views were accurate. Here goes: as a percentage of GDP, this is…
Lee Drutman on Why Money Still Matters
At the Monkey Cage : “Once again, politics proved to be more complicated than a simple bidding market in which the side that spends more money gets the prize: Money did not seem to matter in the sense that it determined the outcomes. But candidates certainly behaved as if it mattered, which gave – and…