Campaign finance and causal fallacies
The front page of Sunday’s Washington Post carried this headline: “Business Sees Gain In GOP Takeover.” The subtitle explained, “Political Allies Push Corporate Agenda.” Here’s the opening charge from author Jim VandeHei:
Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century.
Articles about campaign finance inevitably lead to causal fallacies. This one suggests that the GOP has been sold to the highest bidder, but never asks if large corporations give more to the GOP because it already shares their interests. VandeHei doesn’t ask if Democrats were bought by unions or minority lobbies when their legislative record accompanies similar donations.
To be clear, the information in the article is important and donations can in fact influence nuances in policies and laws. But it is rare and unlikely for donations to influence broad, general ideology. For instance, conservatives have long had an aversion to frivilous class-action suits, and Wal-Mart’s donations to the Bush campaign do not mean that Republicans are passing protections from class-action suits because of Wal-Mart’s support in the campaign.
For argument’s sake let’s assume that the GOP passed class-action protection because of Wal-Mart’s campaign contributions. Why didn’t VandeHei also ask if trial lawyer contributions to Democrats caused their opposition? If the GOP pushes for oil drilling in Alaska because of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s campaign contributions, do Democrats oppose it because of environmental lobby contributions? I think the answer depends, with corporations often donating simply because of shared interests, even though the contributions may help tailor nuances in the laws in certain circumstances. Either way campaign finance stories will always have another side to the coin, and Jim VandeHei failed miserably in presenting it in this front page Post piece. There’s no place for this false meme in responsible, objective journalism.
Bloggers repeating the meme: Charles Todd, Thurston Howell IV, and Myth Taken Politics.
18 Responses to “Campaign finance and causal fallacies”
Well, I think the Democratic Party has largely abandoned the working poor and that seems to correlate with large corporate contributions flowing to Democrats. That doesn’t prove cause and effect (a thing extremely difficult to prove)but it makes me suspicious.
Has the GOP Sold Out?
In The Agora’s Joshua Clayborn gives an excellent rebuttal to a Washington Post article, suggesting the “GOP has been sold to the highest bidder.”
I agree that an conclusion that corporate donations caused Republicans to favor pro-corporate policy is probably a fallacy. But is that really the only way corporations can “buy” political support?
I think it’s easier to infer that 1) Republicans’ pro-corporate policies have caused an increase in corporate donations to the party and 2) the increase in corporate donations caused Republicans to win the presidential election.
Now, it may be that grassroots politics, not corporate donations, caused the Republicans to win the election. But George Bush had nearly twice as many donations of $2000 or more than John Kerry did. (see http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/donordems.asp?filter=A&sortby=2) The inference being that rich people (i.e. the type of people who own corporations) supported GWB, and got what they paid for.
Thus, corporations got what they paid for, regardless of whether their donations “caused” the policies (they probably didn’t, in my opinion). They paid for a pro-corporation president, and they got one.
I agree with your assesment of causal fallacy, for the reason that there are indeed reasonable alternative explanations, none of which Mr. VandeHei explored.
I don’t quite understand your reference to similar inferences that may be drawn with regard to the Democrats and unions, et al. You seem to be slipping in your own fallacy, the tu quoque, to buttress your main assertion. Whether the opposition party might be subject to the same (fallacious) inferences does nothing to make your case that VandeHei offered a fallacious argument with regard to Republicans.
No scott, I still hold that it is fallacy, but I also hold that if VandeHei is going to present a fallacy like this, he must do it evenly. VandeHei has taken the worse of all possible options in penning the piece.
I have to disagree with you on this one, Josh, at least in part. I don’t believe it is a fallacy that corporate contributions have a direct causal effect in terms of getting legislation favorable to those who make the contributions. I do agree with you that the same thing could and should have been said of the Democrats, but I think that only demonstrates the strength of the causal connection within both parties. I say this because I have direct knowledge of how lobbying works because I have close friends who do it and I think it’s naive to believe that such contributions only change the “nuances” of the bill. In innumerable situations, bills have actually been written by the lobbyists themselves, handed to an aide and then entered as the work of a Congressman or Senator.
Our political system has become an auction where the highest bidder gets the prize, and that happened long ago. Both parties are up to their necks in it and are now completely dependent on the (literally) hundreds of millions of dollars coming in each election cycle. The recent Medicare prescription drug bill is a pretty good example of how corporate money distorts political ideology, or caused parties to ignore it. Do you think that bill had a chance in hell of passing with a Democratic president and a Republican congress? Not on your life. But Bush pushed it through, despite his empty rhetoric about “smaller government” and the need to cut down on “entitlement programs”. The big drug companies and HMOs donated over $100 million in the last election cycle; in return they got a bill with over $100 billion in tax giveaways and rigged rules in their favor. Not a bad investment. But there’s no way they would have donated to Bush on the idea that he would pass such a bill given the rhetoric of his campaign – unless of course, a deal had already been struck, or the companies knew that his public rhetoric was empty and that he was really going to go and push through the largest new entitlement program in 40 years. And how could they know that unless they had direct influence far beyond the mere nuances? And by the way, you could say the exact same thing if you look at several bills that Clinton pushed through in the mid 90s, like the deregulation of the financial industry, that followed enormous contributions from investment banks.
At very best, I think you could argue that you hope it’s a fallacy. But believe me, the real world of party politics and lobbying is far seedier than you might imagine. Large corporations are not stupid; they don’t invest millions of dollars into lobbying efforts and campaign contributions merely because they like this or that candidate. Their efforts are repaid with the transfer of hundreds of billions of our tax dollars from folks like me and you to corporate bank accounts, and this happens in a number of ways – direct subsidy, tax subsidy, fixed mineral or grazing rights, exemption from liability (look at the energy bill from last year that contains provisions specifically exempting the makers of a gasoline additive that is causing environmental damage in localities around the country from liability; the result, of course, is that we get to pay for the cleanup rather than the company responsible for producing the dangerous product), favorable regulatory rules (look at the way Bush manipulated the writing of the regulatory rules for the BCRA, weakening their implementation so much that McCain outright called him a liar, then flip flopping during the campaign and deciding that the rules didn’t go far enough), and many more ways. This is precisely why the libertarian-minded are often heard complaining about corporate welfare. This sort of thing is an enormous distortion on free markets and a ridiculous transfer of wealth from individual taxpayers to huge corporations, who are then in a much stronger position than their smaller competitors who don’t have access to the halls of power because they are outbid.
I think I may have communicated the post poorly. The thrust of the post has less to do with the effects of contributions and more to do with Jim VandeHei’s horrible “reporting.” Causal connections are definitely possible, and I thought I made that clear in the post (”donations can in fact influence nuances in policies and laws”). But their degree of influence is far from clear, and if a causal link does exist, it exists equally in both parties. VandeHei didn’t present this at all.
Josh, my problem is with the minimization of that influence. Corporate money impacts far more than the mere “nuances” of a bill. In many cases, their lobbyists actually write the bills. I fully agree with you that it exists equally in both parties, however.
For what it’s worth, I spent about 3 years working at the Indiana Legislative Services Agency drafting legislation for the Indiana General Assembly. It was not at all uncommon for a legislator to submit a bill request to the effect of “Please get with Lobbyist Smith and write up the bill he has in mind on the subject of X,Y, or Z.” Often enough, Lobbyist Smith would have the actual text of the legislation he wanted. (Not that the text got through me unscathed. Usually it was in craptacular form that left vague the important details of who got to do what to whom and under what circumstances. In that position, I didn’t care a bit about the policy, but by god the prose was going to be clear about what the policy was.)
I couldn’t say how much contributions had to do with the legislation introduced, but I have a hard time believing that a legislator would carry water for a lobbyist in that fashion without some sort of campaign assistance.
On the other hand, for the most part, I got the idea that legislators were almost to a person very interested in passing legislation that was good for Indiana. Their expertise, however, was limited compared to the wide range of subjects they were called upon to address. Lobbyists were handy people to have around because, while they had an agenda, they also had expertise. And a lobbyist caught lying to a legislator about a fact or two was soon enough persona non grata around the State House. Maybe I am and was naive, but while the system has it’s flaws, it certainly didn’t strike me as being rife with corruption.
(None of which really addresses the main point of the post.)
Another criticism of VandeHei: Not until the eighth paragraph does he admit that more than a third of corporate donations in the 2004 elections went to Democrats, and that Democratic votes in the House and Senate were necessary for passing the pro-corporate legislation. Who wants to bet that that paragraph didn’t make it onto the front page?
Dismantling Our Democracy and the Rule of Law
The allegation of a
Although you tracked back to me, perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote. I did not see the article as proving quid pro quo, but rather a collusion of interested parties to use money to influence the general public. In fact it is more sinister than bribery because the effect is to diminish our democracy. From my blog, “Creating a system that appears corrupt in the sense of money for access, but even more dangerously is in reality a sophisticated conspiracy where elected representatives collude with corporations to gain unequal and unfair access to the public airwaves and other public communications in a legal, but unethical manner. (legal only in the sense that the laws were written to allow the unethical practices usually by complicit elected representatives).” You seem to misunderstand the “meme” (I would use the better word–point) of the article, that undue influence of the elected representatives working with large corporations against the interests of the representatives’ constituents.
“No scott, I still hold that it is fallacy, but I also hold that if VandeHei is going to present a fallacy like this, he must do it evenly.”
That sounds an awful lot like “two wrongs make a right.” You’ve criticized VandeHei for fallacious reasoning in one instance, and then in turn criticized him for not engaging in fallacious reasoning in another instance. I don’t see the sense in that.
Scott
Nope, I’m saying that there are two bad roads VandeHei can go down, and he chose the worst of the two. For reasons Ed pointed out, and reasons I tried to note in the post, campaign dollars DO influence legislation to some degree, but I believe 1) VandeHei failed to note the degree is questionable and often not clear and 2) failed to note it also influences the other party to some degree. This position is consistent and is far from saying “two wrongs make a right.” I think any sensible person will see that.
“Nope, I’m saying that there are two bad roads VandeHei can go down, and he chose the worst of the two.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, but why is a fallacious argument directed at Republicans objectively worse than one directed at Democrats?
“I think any sensible person will see that.”
Sensible people call this “poisoning the well,” a rather artless use of the argumentum ad hominem. If you’re going to criticize someone for using a fallacious argument form, you ought to make a reasonable attempt to avoid the use yourself, or at least give some indication that you’ve thought about such an accusation leveled at you before you respond defensively.
Otherwise, sensible people could quite rightly charge you with hypocrisy.
For reasons Ed pointed out, and reasons I tried to note in the post, campaign dollars DO influence legislation to some degree, but I believe 1) VandeHei failed to note the degree is questionable and often not clear and 2) failed to note it also influences the other party to some degree. How is this criticism not consistent?
Instead of repeating the same arguments over and over (whether this is a case of influence purchasing), consider that this is a case of collusion. Elected representatives are working with corporations to buy advertising to support positions they agree on. The problem is that this is to the disadvantage of citizens who are being hurt by the disinformation and by the actual policies. And citizens are not afforded the same access to either their elected representative or to the truth or to be able to buy equal time in the media. Reread the article and you will better understand what it is saying.
“…I believe 1) VandeHei failed to note the degree is questionable and often not clear…”
I agreed with you in my first post, and I still do. I had read the article before I read your post on it here, and missed the problem you rightly addressed. Your fatal flaw (that’s a joke) was awaking me from my analytical slumber.
“…and 2) failed to note it also influences the other party to some degree.”
I didn’t (at least to my way of thinking) accuse you of being inconsistent, although I acknowledge that one may reasonably have inferred that from my criticism.
If your criticism of VandeHei was simply that he was being hypocritical (or merely inconsistent) in failing to point to similar failings within the Democratic ranks, I would withdraw my objection. If your criticism was, rather, (as I believed it was) that VandeHei’s inference was *incorrect* because he failed to point to similar failings among Democrats, then my criticism would stand.
I’ll take you at your word if you say you intended the former, and be grateful for the clarification.
Scott