PACs have their defenders, who argue that they merely represent the series of competing interests that are an inherent part of the U.S. pluralistic political system; they are hardly monolithic as portrayed. At a time when many bemoan declining citizen involvement in the electoral process, proponents argue that PACs have increased participation by their rank and file.
Finally, they contend that efforts to do away with PACs in congressional races would be as ineffective as the attempt to impose expenditure ceilings in presidential races: PAC money would not disappear but would simply be channelled into less visible, less traceable channels such as soft money and independent expenditures.
Advantages of Incumbency
If reformers believe PACs are inherently corrupting, leading Republicans in Congress have targeted them for very different reasons. The Republicans complain that PAC patterns of contributions in recent years have shown a distinct bias towards incumbent legislators, a significant majority of whom are Democrats.
PACs have become a lightning rod in the debate over whether the advantages of incumbency have become excessive. Most House turnover in recent years has come through retirement, death, members running for higher office, and the redistricting following the decennial census rather than through incumbents being defeated by challengers.
In 1984, when Republican Ronald Reagan won re-election to the presidency in a landslide over Democrat Walter Mondale, the re-election rate of incumbents in the overwhelmingly Democratic House was 96 percent. In 1990, predicted by many to be a year in which a doubting public would turn on incumbents, the re-election rate again was 96 percent. In some years, it has exceeded 98 percent.
Traditionally, the greater prestige and visibility of Senate seats have made them more attractive to political challengers. Even when the odds of defeating an incumbent have been small, well-funded, credible opponents often appeared - hoping for an upset or to use a strong electoral showing as a springboard to a future race for office. However, in the past two elections, there have been increasing signs that the lack of competitiveness affecting House races is seeping into Senate contests as well.
While some political scientists have concluded from the high re-election rates that there exists a “Permanent Congress,” in fact, two-thirds of the House has served fewer than 12 years (Edwards 1990), and senators have experienced a 44 percent turnover rate over a nine-year period (Swift 1989).
In 1988, the average winning Senate campaign cost more than $4 million, while many challengers failed to raise even a third of that amount (Makinson 1989, 21). In 1990, of the 31 Senate incumbents seeking re-election, four had no opposition whatsoever and another 11 faced challengers who never presented a credible financial or political threat. Again, in a year in which incumbents were thought to be in disfavour, only one sitting senator was defeated, by a challenger who was out-spent 8-1.
The failure of legislative challengers to attain financial competitiveness comes in the face of demonstrations by political scientist Gary Jacobson that money is a much more important campaign resource for non-incumbents than for incumbents (Jacobson 1980, 48-49). And the failure comes at a time when PACs are playing an increasingly important role in funding incumbents’ campaigns. According to the FEC, 57 percent of PAC donations went to incumbents during the 1977-78 election cycle; a decade later, that figure had jumped to 74 percent.
Of course, labour PACs supported congressional Democrats strongly throughout this period, including substantial financial assistance to many Democratic challengers. What has angered the Republicans is that business and trade association PACs have shifted their loyalties more and more towards the Democrats. In 1988, 55 percent of business PAC money was funnelled to Democrats, mostly to incumbents. Just six years earlier, Republican congressional candidates got 60 percent of business PAC dollars (Makinson 1989, 15).
The Republicans, a minority in both houses of Congress, contend that their inability to field competitive challenges to Democratic incumbents in many instances is due to a lack of financial support from, among others, the business PACs. In turn, the PACs say that the Republicans often have failed to recruit credible challengers to begin with.
Among the advantages of incumbency are not only the attracting of PAC contributions - in part because of incumbents’ use of their legislative committee memberships as bases for fund-raising - but also the franked mail privilege, generous staffing including in home-state or district offices, travel, honoraria, and incumbent-dominated safe districts achieved through decennial reapportionment.
The Costs of Television
The chasing of PAC money, along with the frequent complaints that legislators are paying too much attention to fund-raising and not enough to legislating, are both by-products of the escalating costs of Senate and House campaigns. The professionalization of politics has given rise to computerized campaign headquarters featuring sophisticated and expensive strategies for targeting potential voters and contributors. However, television is repeatedly pointed to as the culprit behind the increasing costs of running for Congress.
Of course, paid television plays a major role in presidential campaigns. But the price tag has been less of an issue, for several reasons. First is the presence of alternative resources in the form of public financing. With soft money increasingly bearing the expense of such nuts-and-bolts activities as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, it has left general candidates free to use much of their public subsidy for television advertising. To a considerable extent, the general election public funding to presidential candidates has turned into an income transfer from the U.S. Treasury to private broadcasters.13 Meanwhile, during the pre-nomination period, state-by-state expense limits and the need to marshal scarce financial resources have limited the use of television. In 1988, television accounted for only 6 percent of all presidential pre-nomination spending (Alexander and Bauer 1991, 35).
At the congressional level, the role of television and its attendant costs have been overstated to a degree. In many House contests, particularly in densely populated urban and suburban areas, the boundaries of a House district are rarely contiguous with the viewership of a broadcast station. There are some 40 congressional districts within the viewing range of New York City stations: some are in New Jersey, some in Connecticut and some in New York. Consequently, it makes little sense to purchase expensive television time to reach many people unable to vote in that district. In these instances, carefully targeted direct mail has been the medium of choice in communicating with voters. In Senate races, which are run statewide, the expense of television is far greater, sometimes as much as 50 percent of the campaign spending.
The federal law governing broadcast stations does not require TV outlets to sell air time to candidates. Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 (the so-called equal time rule) mandates that if one candidate uses a broadcast station, that licensee must provide equal opportunities for all candidates for the same office (whether federal, state or local); this applies to both purchased and free time.
Another part of the law, section 312(a)(7), however, warns that a broadcast station’s licence may be withdrawn for “willful or repeated failure to allow reasonable access to or to permit purchase of reasonable amounts of time for use of a broadcasting station by a legally qualified candidate for federal office on behalf of his candidacy.” But this does not necessarily translate into the sale of broadcast time; the requirement may be fulfilled by the station’s sponsorship of debates or other forums.
In 1972, an amendment to the Federal Communications Act (section 315(b)) mandated that broadcast stations cannot charge political candidates more than the lowest unit rate made available to any other advertiser in the same class of time. The rule, which governs the period 45 days prior to a primary election and 60 days prior to a general election, was designed to insure that political candidates received the same discounts as a station’s most favoured advertisers.
Some broadcasters, however, have succeeded in frustrating the intent of the rule by selling advertising time on a pre-emptible basis. Because political candidates are advertisers who want time that is not pre-emptible, the “lowest unit rate” for this kind of advertising often has ended up being the highest rate charged by the station. Consequently, critics have complained that