Campaign reform leads to less money, fewer ads

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's political parties are not the financial powerhouses they once were. And that means voters have seen slightly fewer negative advertisements.

A recent study by a group that tracks campaign money found that the Missouri Democratic and Republican parties experienced some of the nation's largest declines in financial contributions following enactment of a 2002 federal campaign finance law.

Separate research by a University of Missouri professor shows that political parties ran fewer television ads in Missouri's most recent U.S. Senate race, resulting in fewer attacks against the opposing party's candidate.

There seems to be strong correlation between these two findings.

Effect of reform

Their genesis traces to what's commonly known as the McCain-Feingold law, or the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Among other things, the law sought to halt a chain reaction of money transfers that had allowed political parties to skirt federal campaign contribution limits.

Under the old way of doing things, contributions to national political party committees were limited to $20,000 if that money was to be used for federal election activities. But national parties could accept unlimited amounts of "soft money" to be used for other purposes.

So national Democratic and Republican committees took large, unlimited donations, then transferred that money to their state party committees, which in turn used it to aid their home-state candidates for the U.S. Senate or House.

Until the 2002 law, federal candidates also were allowed to solicit money for party committees. So a Senate candidate could ask supporters to give unlimited amounts of money to the Missouri Republican or Democratic party (as opposed to limited amounts directly to the candidate's campaign committee), with the understanding the party likely would spend that money in support of his or her candidacy.

Political spending in 2002

During the 2002 election, the last before the new law took effect, the Missouri Democratic Party received nearly $12.2 million in contributions, including about $6.5 million from national party committees, according to the Helena, Mont.-based National Institute on Money in State Politics.

That same year, the Missouri Republican Party received more than $10.7 million in contributions, including $6.4 million from national party committees, according to the institute's recent report on state party finances.

The state Republican Party in turn ran ads for its Senate challenger, Jim Talent, while the state Democratic Party aired ads for incumbent Sen. Jean Carnahan.

The ads that the state parties ran in 2002 often were more negative than the ads aired by the candidates' own campaign committees, according to Bill Benoit, a University of Missouri-Columbia communications professor who specializes in tracking and categorizing political rhetoric.

According to Benoit's research, the campaigns for Carnahan and Talent each ran six TV ads, and fewer than one-fifth of their statements attacked each other. In 2002, the state Democratic and Republican parties also each ran six TV ads for the Senate race, in which about three-fourths of the statements attacked the opposing party's candidate, Benoit found.

Changes in 2006

Fast forward to 2006, when Talent was again atop Missouri's ballot -- this time as the incumbent senator facing Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill.

In last year's election, the state political parties played a much smaller financial role.

The Missouri Democratic Party received just $2.3 million in contributions while the Missouri Republican Party received a little less than $3 million, according to the study by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Together, their contributions declined 77 percent from 2002, the second largest drop in state party contributions behind an 84 percent decline in Texas, the institute found.

Because the 2002 law limited how they could spend their money, the state Democratic and Republican parties aired no TV ads for either Talent or McCaskill in 2006.

Instead, the candidates' campaigns increased the number of their own ads; McCaskill ran at least 10 and Talent nine, while the national Democratic and Republican senatorial campaign committees each ran two ads in support of their candidates, according to Benoit's research.

The statements in the political party ads still predominantly were negative while the statements in the candidates' ads remained more positive, Benoit found. But there were fewer party ads and more candidates' ads.