The Democracy Campaign issued a most unusual report today, showing that campaign fundraising by Wisconsin legislators in the first half of the year fell to its lowest level since 1999. In fact, after scouring our archives it appears it was utterly unique. I could find no other report documenting a drop in fundraising. I found this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, but nothing showing the spigot closing.
In our report we attribute the decline in donations to the Assembly's rule banning fundraising during the state budget process. This wasn't mere conjecture on our part. The numbers told a convincing story. Overall fundraising was down, but it was down most sharply in the Assembly.
Nevertheless, since releasing our analysis this morning we've heard from a few who wonder if the economy had more to do with it than the Assembly rule.
Could be. But if the recession was the cause, then fundraising should have been in a tailspin in 2008 because the economy was already in a freefall. That wasn't the case. On the contrary, all kinds of records were broken in last year's legislative elections.
And back in 2001 in the aftermath of 9/11, the economy sputtered and both charitable contributions and tax collections fell. But the political money kept flowing. In fact, donations to candidates for governor went up six fold over pre-9/11 levels.
What we've seen over the years is a steep and steady upward arc to political giving, regardless of the condition of the economy. It is one of the few things that is truly recession-proof.
Which is why we are convinced that the drop in legislative fundraising in the first six months of 2009 had everything to do with the Assembly ban on budget-season fundraising.
3 comments:
"But if the recession was the cause, then fundraising should have been in a tailspin in 2008 because the economy was already in a freefall. That wasn't the case. On the contrary, all kinds of records were broken in last year's legislative elections."
Mike, let's be fair.
You can't even begin to compare 2008 to 2009. One featured the most exciting election season of a generation, lead by one of the most exciting candidates in political history, and the other features the electorate sitting around, waiting to see if the Dems in power can succeed at turning the economy around. Even if Barack Obama wasn't running for Assembly, he still affected political behavior enormously. People went into campaign mode, which in America means "giving" mode.
I don't doubt that the ban was effective, but what the comparisons that matter are the budget years – 2007, 2005 etc.
We did compare fundraising to comparable budget years in our report. The 2009 totals are 40% lower than in 2007; 32% lower than in 2005; 28% less than in 2003; and down 42% from the amount raised in 2001. Less was raised in '09 since any budget year since 1999.
The point of the blog was not to compare '09 to '08 in terms of fundraising.
Well good. That's the relevant point.
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