The Center for Competitive Politics released the results of a national poll today showing that likely voters are deeply skeptical of proposed campaign finance disclosure regulations, think current disclosure thresholds are too low and oppose the special deals given to unions in the DISCLOSE Act.
Respondents were generally supportive of organizations’ First Amendment right to spend money on political speech, but support waned for groups doing business with the government. When asked several questions about specific provisions that favor unions in the DISCLOSE Act, strong majorities rejected preferential treatment for organized labor.
“Congress should scrap the DISCLOSE Act,” said Bradley A. Smith, the chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics and a former Federal Election Commission Chairman. “Despite wild claims of public support for the bill, it is clear that the public does not support the special treatment for unions and intrusive disclosure regime contained in the bill.”
“Americans’ views on disclosure are much more complex than ‘reform’ groups like to claim,” he said. “There is a relatively broad consensus that current disclosure thresholds are too low.”
As White House counsel Bob Bauer wrote in a 2006 blog post, “Disclosure is a mostly unquestioned virtue deserving to be questioned.” This survey begins to examine some of these questions in detail.
The poll, conducted Sept. 12 by Pulse Opinion Research, surveyed 1,000 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence. Many of the questions focus on elements of the DISCLOSE Act, which passed the House but failed in the Senate. Democratic leaders have pledged to bring up the measure again this month.
“Given the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by self-styled reformers over the last 20 years trying to equate spending money on politics with corruption, the most surprising thing about this poll may be how little support exists for the type of regulation that would by imposed by the DISCLOSE Act,” said Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Politics. “Even after decades of ‘reform’ hype, Americans appear to reject their extreme approach when trying to reconcile support for the First Amendment with the arcane details of campaign finance regulation.”
Widespread concern about the downsides of disclosure
On disclosure, voters are most skeptical when the question is made personal, suggesting that support is strongly contingent on how the question is asked. The DISCLOSE Act would place new disclosure requirements on citizen groups, unions, and business associations to disclose many of their members and contributors even if those contributors did not make their donations for the purpose of funding political communications.
Only 24 percent of respondents agree that the public has a right to know what organizations they personally contribute to, while 69 percent disagree, regardless of the size of the contribution. Sixty-two percent of respondents think that contributors to political advocacy groups should not have their names reported to the government and made publicly available while just 28 percent think such disclosure is warranted.
Strong agreement exists that current thresholds for mandatory disclosure are too low. Only 21 percent of respondents favored disclosure of all contributions, and another 13 percent favored disclosure of contributions above $200. Currently, contributions of just $200 or more to PACs, political campaigns, or those earmarked for independent expenditures must be publicly disclosed, meaning only 34 percent of poll respondents favored the current disclosure thresholds. A strong majority of respondents (56 percent) said that contributions should never be disclosed, or disclosed only at levels of $1,000 or more—five times the current threshold.
The higher reporting thresholds included in the DISCLOSE Act enjoyed more support, but there was still considerable disagreement about the proper threshold. The poll did not ask about the desirability of these new disclosure requirements, but only 10 percent of respondents favored disclosure of any contributions at the $600 threshold provided for by the House version of DISCLOSE, which, added to the 34 percent favoring disclosure of all contributions or contributions over $200, means just 44 percent favored the threshold in the House version of DISCLOSE. Another 23 percent generally support a disclosure threshold of $1,000, as in the Senate version of DISCLOSE. Twenty percent think it should be $10,000 and 13 percent think such contributions should never be disclosed.
DISCLOSE also includes a provision that would require the leader and largest donor to appear in the ad approving its message. Sixty-eight percent of respondents think such a provision would be of at least some value in better understanding and judging the ad’s accuracy and credibility.
It seems that Americans see a minimal informational interest in some level of disclosure but are intensely wary about allowing their friends, co-workers and neighbors to ferret out their political leanings like modern-day McCarthys.
Mixed support for independent political speech, but little support for DISCLOSE Act’s union special treatment
Forty percent of likely voters agree that businesses, unions and interest groups should be able to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates, while 48 percent disagree.
But when asked just about interest groups, support grows, suggesting that advocacy groups are viewed more favorably than businesses or unions. Fifty-six percent of respondents agree with the statement that “[i]nterest groups represent the views of many American citizens with different priorities and should be free to spend money promoting their members’ interests in politics.” Thirty-five percent disagree.
Less public support exists for allowing government contractors, public employee unions, and groups that get government grants to spend on politics, but Americans overwhelmingly favor treating business groups and unions equally. Fifty-nine pe
rcent of voters agree that a law prohibiting government contractors from running political ads should also ban unions that represent government contractor employees from running such ads. Thirty percent disagree. Also, fifty-nine percent of likely voters think that public employee unions should be prohibited from running political ads; 28 percent think they should be allowed to do so.
Contrary to claims of a public backlash after the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed curbs on the political spending of companies, unions and advocacy groups, the intensity of opposition to speech by incorporated groups is low—only 27 percent strongly disagree with the idea of corporate and union spending on politics.
Ultimately, despite claims by “reform” groups and politicians, the polling data shows that Americans are not in an uproar over the Citizens United decision.
Less than half (a 48 percent plurality) believe that “corporations and unions” should be prohibited from spending money on political speech, and a significant majority (56 percent) support spending by “interest groups” (which are usually incorporated). Barely a quarter of respondents “strongly disagree” with allowing corporations and unions to speak out.
Americans are not willing to eviscerate privacy rights to deter political speech, and they emphatically reject the decision by the DISCLOSE Act’s authors to single out thousands of business corporations for speech bans while leaving unions with similar interests free to speak.
The Center for Competitive Politics is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group dedicated to protecting First Amendment political rights. CCP seeks to promote the political marketplace of ideas through research, litigation and advocacy.
The telephone survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted by Pulse Opinion Research on Sept. 12. Pulse Opinion Research is an independent public opinion research firm using automated polling methodology and procedures licensed from Rasmussen Reports.
