Mark Schmitt has written an interesting piece, and Bruce Cain has briefly responded, on the surging skepticism among a distinguished group of scholars about the last decades of political reform.  Schmitt respects the skeptics’ work.  But he worries that they may also have succumbed to a dangerous naiveté.  He means that they may overstate the negative effects of recent reform efforts, as in diminishing the role of parties, and may make too much of what can be accomplished by countermeasures to strengthen the capacity for effective governance.  It is fine to say, as these skeptics do, that we should value more a messy and transactional politics by which consensus is forged and accomplishments are possible, but Schmitt insists that we proceed with care, lest we romanticize the time of shady backroom dealing rigged against anyone lacking money and privilege.

This warning seems premature: there is little cause to worry that these skeptics have gone too far, or that their prescriptions would usher in a new Gilded Age of opaque politics full of the risk of corruption and plutocratic control.  They still have a fair amount of work to do in pulling the conversation toward a reasonable “middle," away from the exaggerations and distortions of the political reform debate over many years.  One challenge has been overcoming the pressures on reform thought from the reform movement.

Common Cause has produced a report to show the involvement of the “religious right” in a systematic legal attack on campaign finance restrictions. At the center of the tale is lawyer Jim Bopp and around him are clients with passionate commitments who wish pursue them without financing limitations or disclosure.  Common Cause describes this as a “crusade.”

As a descriptive piece, there is nothing wrong with this report. The activities of Bopp and his clients are presented with reasonable accuracy, as far as one can tell.  But on another level, the report could be read to be making a political point—to imply that the religious right, waging this “crusade” against campaign finance, is exhibiting an unsavory zealotry on regulatory issues like the one some might attribute to its religious commitments. The word “crusade” is not here a throw -away.  It appears in the title of the Report, then again in the Executive Summary, and finally once more in the Conclusion.  It is an imputation to this cause of extremism.

It seem unfair that just holding a hearing subjects the FEC to criticism and ridicule. The agency was acted entirely reasonably in inviting views on what it might do, if anything, in response to the McCutcheon case.  So what followed was predictable: the usual strong divisions were expressed and anyone hoping for a clear picture of the problems of campaign finance and how to address them was bound to be disappointed.  The FEC is not the culprit here: it only hosted the discussion and is not responsible for its content. It was a hearing.

It is no secret that the campaign finance debate has become fruitless and repetitious – – in short, exhausted. Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation, a powerful progressive voice on reform, is one among a number of who believes that the entire question should be rethought from scratch. He has published a paper through a collaborative effort of the Brennan Center for Justice and the New America Foundation, arguing for a new framework built around a conception of political opportunity. He should win a large audience for what he says about the staleness and inaccuracies in the policy debate, and for the suggestions he makes for a change in direction.

Writing off the Koch announcement of massive 2016 spending, Ron Fournier urges that we be realistic about campaign finance reform in the 21st century: no limits, just instant disclosure. He seems to be salvaging what he can from the current mishmash of changes in political practices, outdated campaign finance requirements and increasingly unsparing limits on Congress's constitutional authority. Without a sharp focus on disclosure, he argues, the 2016 election will go largely dark.

Fournier’s analysis has two considerable virtues: a call for the debate to adjust to constitutional and political realities and an emphasis on single-minded priority in the reform of the law. The debate is stuck, and one reason is that a fair number of interested observers are dedicated to fighting the same arguments heard since the 1970s. A whole host of objectives are being kept artificially alive for discussion. Political spending is to be reduced and the prohibition on corporate spending restored. Independent spending is to be curtailed because some of it is suspect, gutted by disreputable, if not invariably illegal, forms of coordination. Political discourse is being poisoned by attack advertising.

And, of course, there is too much "dark money" and disclosure law should be strengthened against it. Here is where Fournier recommends that reform energy be expended.