In the protracted, confusing debate over campaign-finance reform, Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky, has issued an offer that any fan of the information revolution may find very hard to refuse. It's simple and it's seductive, and it appeals to the empowered citizen we each aim to be.
McConnell is offering us sunlight. He wants to rewrite campaign-finance rules so that the main focus is on full, immediate (presumably electronic) public disclosure. In conjunction with this change, McConnell proposes that all the byzantine, bureaucratic, "second wave" complexity be eliminated: no more limits on donations, no more spending caps. Political candidates will succeed or fail according to free-market principles: They raise and spend money in the open market, and they are subject to the intense scrutiny of a plugged-in citizenry.
Disclosure-as-antiseptic is an infectious and nearly irresistible idea. McConnell's proposal would "add a large dose of sunlight to the process," opines The Washington Times. "Enhanced disclosure would put everything on the table for voters to judge."
Sounds great. So why do I still consider McConnell the most vociferous opponent of meaningful campaign-finance reform?
Because he is invoking disclosure as a panacea, the way some fitness gurus talk about vitamin C. He is pretending that a valuable democratic asset is even more powerful than it is.
And, as with all great persuaders, his pitch starts with an undeniable truth: There should of course be full, immediate disclosure of all campaign-finance data. Disclosure is always a good thing. In legislatures, brokerage houses, newsrooms, hospitals, restaurants, and schools, conflicts of interest and outright fraud are frequently exposed and dissolved by public disclosure.
In fact, the Net has taken disclosure to a whole new level. Consider the peace of mind parents purchase when they sign on to Net services that provide constant digital picture updates from their children's day-care centers.
But disclosure is never a guarantee, and the idea becomes reckless and even dangerous when it is portrayed as one. Saying that information can be useful in helping voters ferret out corruption and incompetence is not the same thing as saying that it will always adequately do the job.
One of Newt Gingrich's first acts after being sworn in as Speaker of the US House of Representatives in January 1995 was to make all congressional documents publicly available on the Net, on a Web site called Thomas (named after Thomas Jefferson). This singular deed, he declared, would "change the balance of power - because knowledge is power. If every citizen had the access to information that the Washington lobbyists have, we would have changed the balance of power in America toward the citizens and out of the Beltway."
Most likely, he knew better. Gingrich is smart enough to understand that opening the floodgates of information doesn't automatically make Americans better citizens. To the contrary, while some political specialists have benefited from comprehensive disclosure, the average citizen has been more apt than before to get lost in the flood. It's focus that brings knowledge and power, not diffusion.
If citizens had full access to pharmaceutical test data, could they be expected to judge which drugs were safe and effective without the aid of the FDA? One might think that lists of campaign donors are much easier to decipher than drug trials, but when donors start cleverly disguising themselves by hiding behind dummy organizations, even the most able and inquisitive voter might be at a loss.
I don't want to assume the worst about McConnell - that his disclosure-as-panacea proposal is a cynical ploy. Let's just assume he's making the very common information-age mistake of confusing the easy, cheap access to information with the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge requires good information, but still doesn't come easy.
In fact, the irony is that as the information supply increases, our limited attention becomes more in demand and fragmented. Our machines, our data, and our lives are more complex. We must confront the paradox of living in a world where there is so much worthwhile information immediately available to us, it becomes less likely (simply as a matter of mathematics) that we will be able to focus on any one particular information stream.
Which means we should demand disclosure, but we shouldn't settle for it. Sunlight is great - but it doesn't guarantee perfect vision. We should also demand a campaign-finance system that isn't so prone to corruption, distraction, and lousy government. Are we living in a democracy or a plutocracy? Until we adopt a system of public financing, I'm afraid that question will be more and more difficult to answer.
Related links:
A Netizen report on making finance public online
Brain Tennis on campaign-finance reform
A Netizen report shows both parties can be bought
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
