Valuing voters

If you’ve paid much attention to reactions to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling regarding campaign spending on federal elections, you’d be forgiven for believing that the high court had decided that your vote counts for less than it used to.

Also that corporations and unions now get to vote too.

We don’t think the effects of the ruling will be nearly so dire, or so undemocratic.

Firstly, we can’t see how a ruling that frees groups as different as corporations and labor unions to lavish even more of their millions on political campaigns is likely to tilt the odds steeply in either direction.

Critics of the 5-4 opinion, among them President Obama, argue that overturning provisions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law sullies the sanctity of the electoral process.

Obama: The ruling will result in a “stampede of special interest money in our politics.”

Does the president believe the vast fortunes already spent on campaigns (including his own successful one in 2008) are for something other than a “special interest?”

Every dollar that goes into a campaign is for a special interest — to elect a “special” candidate or to pass a “special” piece of legislation or ballot measure.

We don’t doubt that the court’s decision will lead to voters being bombarded even more heavily by advertisements during future campaigns.

But this trend is as likely to annoy voters as it is to brainwash them.

For years now perhaps the most common complaint we’ve heard from voters goes something like this: “I wish this election were over already. I’m so tired of the incessant TV ads.”

The point is that even before the Supreme Court ended certain restrictions on spending, both sides in campaigns across the land were able to saturate the airwaves with propaganda.

The situation will not be materially changed if there are 30 percent more ads, or 50 percent more.

In fact, considering voters’ disgust with the current volume of commercials, it may well be that campaigners who take advantage of this ruling to buy more broadcast time will lose rather than gain votes.

Critics of the ruling seem to be implying, though, that voters are hapless sheep whose allegiance is always for sale to the highest bidder, and that every dollar shelled out captures another vote.

We think more highly of voters than that.

The greater danger to democracy arises not when voters are deluged by political messages, but rather when all or most of those messages are deployed from one direction.

Which illustrates another fallacy in the critics’ case against the court’s majority opinion: the implication that every corporation will always support the same candidate or bill. We doubt the corporate “world” is so homogeneous.

Whether the federal government limits campaign spending or it doesn’t, voters can hardly avoid being dished out an onslaught of messages that spans the political spectrum.

What matters most is not whether this stew is nutritious — many political ads seem to us to nourish prejudicial rather than critical thinking — but whether the pot is wide enough so cooks of every flavor can toss in their ingredients, and all who are hungry can get their spoons in there.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court did not tinker with one aspect of federal campaign law: the requirement that corporations and unions publicly disclose financial contributors.

In that respect the federal system will mimic Oregon’s, which in general we like.

Spending is not limited, but campaigners have to keep detailed records — records which are readily available to voters — about who gave them money and how they spent it.

If such a transparent system were as sinister as some people say, then how to explain this week’s election in Oregon?

Corporations, faced with a ballot measure that raises their taxes, spent a few million to convince voters to defeat it. The corporations lost.

Like we said, voters are not sheep.