Dialing for Dollars and for Domination: Electoral Gatekeeping by the Wealthy

• In Event: Campaign Finance and Democracy: Dilemmas and Solutions

Abstract

We are informed by emerging body of social science scholarship that affluent individuals play an extremely prominent gatekeeping role in American elections. Wealthy donors account for the overwhelming bulk of money raised during elections in the United States. They thus come to exert a tremendous amount of influence over who decides to run for, and who gets elected to, higher office in the United States. Candidates who obtain the reliable support of wealthy donors run for office in much higher numbers than those who do not enjoy the backing of affluent individuals. Unsurprisingly, they also win elections in much higher numbers as well.
In this paper, I offer a novel evaluation of the gatekeeping role that wealthy donors play in the American electoral process. A central issue with the electoral gatekeeping function that these individuals perform, on my account, is that it facilitates the domination, by the affluent, of American citizens of ordinary means. Domination, in the sense in which I use the term, is what occurs when individuals are compelled to depend upon the will and whims of others for the addressing and satisfaction of their basic interests – understood as the things that they need in order to live a minimally decent and tolerable existence. Domination, I assert in this paper, is a profound moral evil. Persons who have to depend on the support, cooperation, or grace of others in order to lead a minimally decent existence are deprived of their freedom in morally impermissible ways. Domination also occasions the social subordination of those who are dominated, thereby violating important relational egalitarian norms and values.
The gatekeeping role that the wealthy play in U.S. elections, I argue in this paper, facilitates domination by helping to skew political decision-making in their favor. The preferences of wealthy individuals are reflected, to a highly disproportionate degree, in the platforms and positions that those elected to higher office hold. The decisions that officeholders take, as a result, also tend to heavily reflect the wishes of their affluent supporters and contributors. The need to raise money for their re-election, additionally, and to prevent their wealthy backers from bolting to their rivals, gives elected officials further compelling incentive to act in ways that reliably and consistently track the preferences of these donors. Thanks to the gatekeeping role of the wealthy, their support or opposition thus becomes crucial to the consideration and enactment of policies by elected officials and political institutions. When the wealthy, as a class, are in favor of specific policies, the likelihood of their being taken up and passed by are considerably increased. On issues which the wealthy do not regard as important, or on which they hold divided and conflicting views, the prospects of elected officials taking action are low. And finally, when the wealthy are collectively and vehemently opposed elected officials taking up a particular matter, the latter are almost certain to accede to their wishes.
By skewing political decision-making in their favor, the gatekeeping role that the wealthy play in the American electoral process also facilitates the domination of the less affluent. Citizens of ordinary means become dependent upon the wealthy for the addressing and satisfaction of their basic interests by the political process. When the wealthy, as a group, desire political outcomes that are consistent with their basic interests, the likelihood of their basic interests being addressed and furthered is greatly increased. When the wealthy are opposed to outcomes that further their basic interests, in contrast, Americans of ordinary means can expect these to be ignored – and indeed, actively overridden – by the political process. By occasioning their domination in this way, I further argue in the paper, the gatekeeping role that money plays in the American electoral process compromises the freedom of the less well-off, and occasions their social and political subordination. I conclude by noting a few interesting implications that the domination-centered critique that I offer in this paper has for campaign finance reform.

Author

• Prithviraj Datta, Franklin and Marshall College