Lawrence Lessig, the Internet legislation pioneer who in recent years has studied the phenomenon of corruption in politics and business, and who is also a renowned constitutional law professor at Harvard University, has announced his candidacy in the US Democratic presidential primaries.
Lessig advocates reform in the electoral registration system, in the demarcation of constituencies and in campaign finance as the main pillars of his campaign. He also seeks equal suffrage and has vowed that if he is elected, he will push through legislation for a citizens equality act within a year and then resign.
Few would oppose his advocating that the political power of wealthy people should be limited to truly deliver on promises of democratic reform. In contrast, what does surprise is the debate over political contributions, which has totally lost its way.
A certain political party has had long-term party assets, giving a convergence of wealth and power in Taiwan, which seriously harms fair competition. This results in a strange phenomenon that would have been thoroughly dealt with long ago in any truly democratic nation.
At the same time, compared with the US’ complex law on campaign funds, it is no wonder that Taiwan’s crude and lackadaisical political donation law lacks sufficient rigor. The source and the amount of political contributions should be restricted, with transparent and standardized truthful disclosure of contributions to eliminate undue influence in political competition. Both countries have the same intent in their legislation.
Wealthy people set the political agenda directly through successful funding campaigns, indirectly allowing them to control politics as they want. Thus, the space available to ordinary people for equal participation in the political process is restricted, leading to increasingly ineffective democratic institutions with little legitimacy.
Therefore, if the general population is unable to effectively curb consortia or restrict people’s use of money to lock in their political representatives and grab excessive political influence, then for most ordinary people, it will be difficult to obtain all sorts of resources through a fair political process, or renew and redirect policy.
With wealth influencing elections and even the decisionmaking process, is it a political voice that should be protected? If wealth is the expression of political views, and is the road to changing political results, then how much protection should wealth, as a tool for political voice, receive? Should people with a lot of money have a higher position of influence? Or perhaps even, the more one donates, the better protected their right to a political voice should be.
If the answer to the above questions is yes, then the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法) should include limits on donors, an upper limit for donations and forcible disclosure of donations, as well as other regulations so that it is not in vain.
However, where would this leave political freedom and equality?
According to the Political Donations Act, in addition to the requirements for political donors not to seek benefits or improper influence, there should be receipts, deposits into specific accounts, mandatory reporting and other regulations. Under the provisions of Article 14 of the act, no person shall receive on behalf of themselves or others anonymous donations of more than NT$10,000.
There are limits to the form and scope of donations people choose to make. Also, donors are not subject to any absolute protection of their privacy. The law forces declaration of donations. Donations over the limit of NT$10,000 cannot be anonymous. Thus a group of anonymous donors who give less than this amount raises no suspicions of illegality.
This has unexpectedly become a loophole for wealthy people or consortia to influence candidates. It is in direct opposition to the aim of fair and balanced political activity in the contributions system. It is also in contradiction to some candidates, who flaunt soliciting only small donations while advocating openness and transparency. Not to mention suspicions that information derived from donations or receipts is not honest, which inevitably leads to possible breaches of Article 6 of the act, which is, people may not act as a broker in, or encumber the contribution of, political donations by utilizing official power, employment relationships or benefits to livelihood.
In the sincere pursuit of fair political competition, candidates do not need to use negative phrases such as political manipulation to describe these serious issues. Instead they should just agree that after the election, they will solve the unique Taiwanese situation of the advantages of party assets and long-term business relations distorting the “status quo” of political competition. They should be compliant with the existing legislation and promise to amend the law to make it more rigorous.
What is stopping us?
Liu Ching-yi is a professor in the College of Social Sciences at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Clare Lear
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