More between Ciara and Me

(Cross posted to the Election Law Listserv).

It's round two! On the issue of incumbency, we are in heated agreement that incumbents are different from you and me. So I'll leave it at that.

On the contribution limits study, Ciara states this:

(Incidentally, as to the critique of our analysis vis-à-vis gerrymandering, to the extent that some states have stricter gerrymandering rules than others, Dr. Stratmann controlled for this with state dummy variables. He also controlled for other factors as well to rule out the problem of endogeneity.)

The Stratmann study says this (I added the boldface):

State dummy variables (fixed effects) control for differences across states that are constant within the state over time (1980-2006) but that may influence all of the aforementioned measures of competitiveness. To the extent that these state dummies account for time invariant variables, such as the number of districts, they do not need to be included in the regression equation because the state dummies already control for these variables. State indicators also capture the fact that population sizes differ greatly across districts, which in part explains differences in campaign spending across states (Gierzynski and Breaux 1991, Hogan 2000), and differences in campaign technology. Lastly,?i controls for omitted time invariant state characteristics that simultaneously determine vote shares and the campaign finance regulations.



Redistricting occurred for the 1982, 1992 and 2002 elections. This analysis captures increases or decreases in competitiveness due to state-wide redistricting via state and year effects. This is certainly less than perfect, but aspects of redistricting that are not captured by these effects will only bias the estimated coefficient on contribution limits if redistricting is correlated with the passage of more restrictive campaign finance laws. No theoretical or empirical work suggests that redistricting is correlated with more restrictive campaign finance laws (see, for example, Basehart and Comer (1991) and Heterington, Larson, and Globetti (2003)

Better minds than mine can weigh in, but I think the correlation that would be an issue could be either a correlation of low state limits and "restrained" gerrymandering (hypothesize the good-government state of your choice), or one between wild-west gerrymandering and states that don't impose anything under a $2000 contribution limit. I would just observe that Stratmann is pretty upfront about this issue. He doesn't maintain that his controls eliminate this issue.

Remember the significant finding in the study is between the $2000 plus contribution group, and the $500 and under group. That's it.

Old Ballots

By the way, I have a Scribd page with scanned copies of old ballots I've collected. See the pasters! Revel in the ambiguous and counterintuitive ballot instructions! It's all there.

Called Out by da Brennan Skolarz!

Yo! Doz skolarz at da Brennan Centa miskonstruz my incumbunt c argument. Meh! Wot wit u?

OK, enough of that LOL stuff.

Apparently, at the Brennan thing I was heard to have said something like this:

[P]anelist Professor Allison Hayward, a skeptic of campaign finance reform, asked whether reformers should really focus more on incumbency than they do on limits on money in politics.

What I meant to say - and what I think I said, was that people with concerns about the quality of governance, who had been railing against earmarks, corporate influence, voter disengagement, etc. etc., might reflect on whether those reflected a problem with money or a problem with incumbency. I thought I was making the rather mundane point that it isn't political spending by itself, but that fact that too often that spending is tied to or derivative of, some goody that the spender seeks or gets from incumbents. To illustrate: nobody is concerned about the corrupting influence donors have on the poor Republican who gets to challenge Nancy Pelosi every two years. It seems stupid to subject both those candidate to identical restrictions, doesn't it?

Furthermore, I believe the Brennan Center study in campaign contribution limits, (summary report here, full paper here) while fine as far as it goes, does not really stand for the proposition that low limits "reduce the power of incumbents." It does demonstrate that lower limits, that is $500 or less, may marginally reduce the reelection rates of incumbents, as compared with states that have "high" limits of $2,000 or more. I am not sure the study's design captures some incumbent protection variables that could correllate with these sets of states - do "reform" minded states with low limits also have effective redistricting reforms that "fix" gerrymandering? I am hesitant to criticize the study, since I am not an empiricist, but it strikes me that there may be an issue here.

Moreover, to the extent this study is suppose to be responsive to the Randall decision, might it not have been useful to design a study that would test the effects of limits as low as those found in that Vermont law? Oh wait - Vermont's were really, really low. The Court wasn't just concerned about limits and competitiveness, but the fact that Vermont had limits that were much lower than other states, applied them to affiliates in a singular way, had other peculiarities, and couldn't really explain why their state required such burdensome restrictions.

And why is "the power of incumbents" the power simply to win reelection? So long as they have the ability to attach earmarks to favor certain supplicants, craft trade rules to help or hinder others, then we aren't getting to the nut of the issue.

If you want to address the "problem of incumbency" in an appropriate way - here's a modest proposal to think about. Why not require both winners and losers to zero out their campaign accounts after each election? Why is it appropriate for Congressman A to sit on a growing coffer seeded with contributions raised 15 years ago, while challenger B must declare his candidacy in a specific cycle and form a federal committee for that race before raising hard money? Hmm?

. . . so . . .

Does this mean that Skeptics Eye is up and running? Maybe . . .

NAMUDNO!

Yes, we had fun, didn't we!

Here, for you all, are the details unavailable from a mere audio transcript, from this morning's argument, and some pertinent questions:

1. Nina Totenberg made a big point of leaving the press section to enter the Bar section and give a distinguished looking gentleman a big kiss. We would all like to know who he was.

2. Abby Thernstrom was seated one person away from John Lewis. I also spotted Patrick Leahy and Ben Cardin. Any other members?

3. Several notables moved colleagues into bar membership. Has such a motion ever been denied?

4. An adorable older man seemed to be picking up a radio station on his hearing aid. I think he was escorted out, but I'm not sure.

5. Why aren't Democrats thrilled to have another opportunity, potentially, to rewrite voting law? Just asking.

6. Ginsberg seemed unwell. Kennedy was mumbling quite a bit, as well.

7. The argument that the Court today stands in the position of the Court in the Civil Rights cases, and that ruling against Section 5 could permit reinstitution of racist practices similar to that time, did not go over well. People, supporters as well as skeptics, cringed.

My prediction: 5 justices concluding that the MUD needs to be able to bailout. 4 reaching further, and finding the renewal of section 5 unconstitutional, as Congress had not sufficiently calibrated it to present conditions. Breyer will write a dissent, where he applies Active Liberty to this context, but yet again fails to drop a footnote to his book. Souter will write for himself and Justice Ginsberg, praising the VRA and especially Section 5 for its ameliorative effects. Souter will pick up on the reference made in argument to Reconstruction and the Civil Rights cases.

UPDATE: We did not observe Nina Totenberg in an indiscretion. The gentleman she greeted so warmly was Frank Lorson, who I understand was a longtime deputy clerk of the Court. There's a photo of Mr. Lorson here, but he seems not to have a Wikipedia page. Someone correct this oversight!

It's Come To This

SkepticsEye - hosted by Blogger! Ah. Hopefully this interface will be a little more idiotproof! And hack resistant.

Living In The Past

I will begin to populate this new site with posts from the late, great Skepticseye.com. So if things look familar, well, that brain cell apparently still flourishes. If I can manage it, they will even have their old dates!