What It Means to the Candidates

Who benefits most from the Supreme Court decision on campaign finances? Political analysts will probably be debating that one right up to Election Day. One conclusion is that, with the spending ceilings now lifted, the presidential candidates who are best off are those who have already raised the most money, such as Democrats Henry Jackson and George Wallace. The reasoning is that they could go right on collecting money beyond the $10 million spending limit on primary campaigns (plus $2 million to cover the costs of fund raising) and simply buy themselves a nomination.

The trouble with that theory is that all major candidates have already accepted some federal matching money and must therefore abide by the $10 million spending limit. Only if a candidate found some way to return the federal funds would the limit no longer apply to his campaign. Many experts believe that no candidate could afford to do so. Reason: since the court upheld the $1,000 limit on individual contributions, most candidates will continue to have trouble raising large amounts of money. That is particularly true of late-starting candidates and liberal Democrats, who are combing the same constituency for a dwindling number of contributors (see box).

Thus, although the $10 million spending limit was struck down, it hardly matters--for 1976, at least.

Jackson has so far raised $3.4 million on his own, second only to Wallace among the presidential candidates (see chart), and has received or applied for federal matching funds totaling $1.4 million. But neither Jackson nor his chief fund raiser, Richard Kline, thinks there is any chance of raising more money than the now revised 1974 law would have allowed. Says Kline: "It is unlikely that anyone will reach $10 million, not even Wallace."

Wallace aides think otherwise. He has already raised $5.3 million in private contributions and has applied for a total of $2.17 million in federal matching funds. Wallace Campaign Director Charles Snider has no plans to change his budget. Said he: "The decision doesn't affect us at all. We have few $1,000 contributors. Our average contribution has been $14, and it is a well-known fact that neither the Governor nor his family has personal fortunes to tap."

As the ten-candidate Democratic field narrows, the front runners may find money easier to get when the donors sense a winner. Even then, some experts believe that the Supreme Court ruling will be of little practical consequence. Says one finance director: "A candidate won't get such large sums of money until he is clearly so far ahead that he is perceived as certain to win the nomination--and then the extra money won't help him much anyway."

The court also struck down the law's limits on how much a candidate can spend on each primary--for example, $200,000 in New Hampshire. Again, however, the various candidates must still abide by these limits if they accept federal matching funds. Somewhat wistfully, an aide to Republican Ronald Reagan says: "In a close battle in some other state, it would be nice to be able to spend more money than we were allowed to before."

Fair Fight? Of course, candidates who are well known or who have personal fortunes (or wealthy and generous close relatives) could conceivably enter primaries at the last minute and make a decisive impact with a big infusion of cash, as long as they did not accept any federal funds. As a result, aides to relatively poor Fred Harris and Morris Udall complained that the court decision hypothetically gave an unfair advantage to candidates with money of their own. Among the better-off are Milton Shapp, Lloyd Bentsen and Sargent Shriver, who is married to a Kennedy. Said Udall's campaign manager, Brother Stewart Udall: "Is it fair? You put Fred Harris and Nelson Rockefeller in the same ring and say, 'Go at it, boys, and have a fair fight'?"

The court ruling that candidates or their families may spend as much of their own money as they want also raised the possibility that wealthy politicians running for the House or Senate--none of whom are eligible for federal matching funds--might try to get up enough money around the dinner table to buy an election. In comparison with presidential campaigns, such races are relatively cheap. But analysts have found that in the past only a small proportion of congressional candidates ever exceeded the spending limits that were established in the 1974 law and declared unconstitutional last week. For example, in 1974, only 17 of the 65 major-party candidates for the Senate and 22 of the 810 major-party candidates for the House spent more than the limits that were later set by the law. Further, only 5.1% of the $73.5 million raised by all candidates for Congress that year was obtained in amounts of more than $1,000.

Fat Cats. In a sense, the court affected several Democratic candidates more by what it did not do last week than by what it did. By not striking down the use of federal funds in presidential primaries and general elections, the court helped keep some candidates in the race even though they have managed to raise comparatively little money on their own. Among them: Harris and Shapp (who qualified for federal matching funds only last week). Similarly, by not removing the $1,000 limit on individual campaign contributions, the court eliminated the possibility that a candidate could rely solely on a handful of fat cats--as Harris and John Lindsay did in 1972. One candidate who could use some fat cats is Birch Bayh, who is having financial problems (see box).

Once the primaries are over, the court decision may have even less effect on the campaigns. Under the court's interpretation of the law, the Democratic and Republican nominees must choose between financing their campaigns entirely with private contributions--limited to $1,000 each--or federal funds totaling $20 million. No candidate this side of Rockefeller or Senator Edward Kennedy seems likely to choose the uncertainties and high costs of private fund raising. The wisest course would be to take the federal money and run. Thus the court decision will probably limit the nominees to spending $20 million apiece--just as the reformers intended in 1974.

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