Is Campaign Spending Threatening Democracy?

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has recently announced its timeline for an attempt at recalling Governor Scott Walker. According to JSOnline, petitions for the recall will begin circulating on Nov. 15. So what can voters expect if a recall of Governor Walker is successful?

Historical amounts of campaign spending.

Probably very few Wisconsinites realize that Wisconsin's campaign finance laws put no cap on individual donations in gubernatorial recall elections. This means that the $10,000 limit on individual donations that exists in standard gubernatorial elections does not apply. The incumbent candidate can start raising money as soon as the first recall petitions are signed.

Governor Walker will start receiving unlimited campaign donations from interest groups as early as Nov. 15. Petitions aren't submitted until Jan. 17, and with the likelihood of court challenges over petition signatures, an election would probably not take place until spring of 2012. That means four months, if not longer, of unlimited donations.

According to postcrescent.com, election analysts are predicting that this recall, if it goes to an election, could shatter state campaign fundraising numbers. Mike McCabe, democratic consultant, put in an interview with the Texas Tribune, "If money didn't correlate to votes, we wouldn't spend it. If everything else is equal, the guy with the most money wins."

I understand that individual campaign contributions are a form of free speech, but at what point are wealthy individuals or powerful interest groups buying votes for candidates? A democracy runs on the idea that each citizen has one vote that impacts the result of an election just as much as every other vote. But when some members of the electorate can exercise a significant financial influence over others, or out-of-state groups are spending money on state elections, the electoral process loses credibility.

So as the money rolls into both campaigns in the potential recall election in the coming months, I encourage Wisconsin voters to be aware of the amount of money being spent for their vote, and put some serious thought into whether this is a good thing for our democracy. Is the value of our vote being diminished by the enormous amount of money being poured into elections? It's time to look at the way we finance campaigns at both the state and federal level, and see if we can better carry out the democratic process in our elections.