By Luke WachobThe independent Government Accountability Office studied these programs and found that public financing regimes in Arizona and Maine did not encourage new candidates or aid candidates challenging incumbents. On the contrary, “[t]here were no statistically significant differences observed for … contestedness (number of candidates per race) and incumbent reelection rates.”In addition, a Center for Competitive Politics analysis of both states’ programs found that tax-financed campaigns did not reduce the high numbers of legislators coming from law and business backgrounds and failed to increase the number of female legislators. In fact, as a group, politicians running on the taxpayer’s dime look very much like those using traditional fundraising (except, of course, that their campaigns are paid for by your taxes).The myth that tax-financed campaigns create new opportunities for candidates lives on as a useful piece of political rhetoric. After all, everyone loves a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” story, so politicians exploit the program to strike the pose of citizen-legislator.
