House Democrats’ big democracy reform package is good policy, and smart politics

Lee Drutman wrote for Vox about the House Democrats' choice to lead off with political reform.

The most transformative piece of HR 1 is the new small-donor matching system. This would change how campaigns are financed, by creating a 6-to-1 public match for every dollar raised in small-dollar contributions. Rather than spending their time calling rich people and attending fundraisers on K Street, individual members would have a greater incentive to do fundraising events back in their districts. As a result, they’d get a very different sense of the most important problems facing the country.

Anything that takes members of Congress away from the gamut of lobbyist-sponsored fundraisers and cold-calling wealthy people and puts them in the living rooms of more representative groups of constituents would be a major game changer for the kinds of concerns that filter up to lawmakers as top priorities. This could significantly alter the premium parties now put on big-donor fundraising prowess in their candidate recruitment strategies. It could also pave the way for a new winning politics of economic fairness.

Most importantly, it would be a way for Democrats to walk to the walk of serious reform. It’s one thing for individual challengers say they won’t take corporate PAC contributions, when corporate PAC money accounts for only about 6 percent of all campaign contributions (and less for Democrats, and far less for challengers). It’s another thing to support reforming the entire campaign finance system to systematically reduce the potential influence of all corporate PAC contributions, and significantly increase the influence of small donors.