Anonymity: A secret fix for campaign finance

Much has been made of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which rightly overturned an untenable and unfair suppression of financial contributions for political causes. Unfortunately, the decision is akin to performing surgery on a dying patient.

Our system of campaign finance is corrupt. Money floods into campaign coffers, but rarely because of a heartfelt desire to advance a political cause. The three most important words in Washington are access, access, access. Money, of course, buys access.

There is a way to break the iron grip on access that campaign contributions provide. The United States should establish an anonymous campaign finance system. We need a federally chartered clearinghouse for campaign donations that matches donors to designated, registered candidates and political action committees. Under such a system, politicians would not know who supports their careers, er, causes.

It's a simple but powerful concept. The identity of the campaign donor would be kept secret, which would break the wink-and-nod link between money and the legislative process.

Imagine the confusion on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress wouldn't know exactly whom to reward with special carve-outs. Union leaders might say they're big supporters of certain candidates, but who could know for sure?

The benefits of an anonymous system would be significant. We would see tighter, more issue-focused campaigns with smaller budgets. Lobbyists would still have jobs, but their roles would be more focused on providing information and analysis rather than bundling campaign donations and hosting reelection receptions.

The obvious objection is that anonymity seems to run counter to the idea of free speech. If nobody knows you're contributing, your efforts to signal your support fail. But the First Amendment concerns the unfettered flow of ideas -- not the free flow of money and influence.

No aspect of an anonymous system would stymie speech. Donors would be able to contribute gobs of cash to any political cause they wished to support. But because of mandated anonymity, they wouldn't get the pork-barrel payoffs that now come with making big donations. When politicians don't know the sources of cash, the importance of the ideas themselves increases.

Needless to say, donors will privately tell politicians that they have contributed. In fact, the incentive is so strong that plenty of people who haven't contributed will be motivated to lie and say that they have. But there will be no way for politicians to check. Never knowing for sure who is talking straight and who is double-dealing, our representatives would be forced back to the very rationale for free speech -- the ideas and policies that they promised to represent and implement.

Better still, our representatives might even consider the common good. Secrecy in contributions would eliminate incentives to introduce favoritism into the tax code, appropriations bills or the vast regulatory system of the modern welfare state. Who knows what might happen when politicians no longer know how much the teachers unions are contributing?

If you think requiring anonymity for political donations wouldn't work or is impractical, ask yourself: Does the secret ballot work? Imagine politicians paying you if you promise to vote for them. You can't -- for good reason. The secrecy of the voting booth prevents anyone from knowing whether you are true to your promise. The same would hold for an anonymous campaign finance system.

Marc Geffroy is a business owner in Maryland. R.R. Reno teaches at Creighton University in Omaha and is senior editor at large of the journal First Things, published by the nonpartisan Institute on Religion and Public Life.