Chapter 2 isolates a number of characteristics that typify states adopting public financing measures. In one of the major conclusions of the study, this chapter shows that the characteristics of states adopting only simple grant systems are starkly different from those of states adopting partial and full public financing systems. Possible explanations for this dichotomy are advanced in Chapter 3. Chapter 2 begins by examining party control of state legislatures and concludes that adoption of partial and full public financing measures through traditional legislative mechanisms occurs only in states largely under Democratic Party control. The chapter then goes on to examine five major sets of measurable characteristics, partisanship and ideology, regionalism, socioeconomic levels and social modernization, civic culture and democratization, and racial and ethnic diversity. Finally, this chapter considers issues of state political culture, as first articulated by Daniel Elazar over thirty-five years ago.

The studies and indexes used to examine the more quantifiable factors come from a variety of different sources and methods. To facilitate easy communication of the major findings of the study, I have standardized most of the indexes to a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. If the resulting indices are normally distributed, 68% of the variation occurs between plus and minus one. Virtually all variation occurs within three standard deviations of the mean. Thus, differences of even half of a standard deviation are substantively important.

TOP

Figure 2.6: States that have Adopted Public Financing of Elections
(Click thumbnail for larger image)

The distribution of generic public financing adoption according to Census Bureau divisions does not show many striking patterns. Between 50%-70% of states in six of the nine divisions have implemented some sort of public financing system. The region with the highest proportion is the East North Central, where Illinois is the only state to not have adopted some form of public financing system. In contrast, no state in the West South Central region of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas has implemented public financing.

The distribution patterns for states which have implemented more comprehensive partial or full systems of public financing are significant. The New England states are the clear leader in this category, followed by the East North Central region. In contrast, the West South Central and Pacific regions have no statewide partial or full public financing measures, followed closely by the Mountain states where only Arizona has a recently implemented a full public financing measure.^[65] However, significant intra-regional patterns are evident as well. The four regions with the highest percentage of full or partial public financing are the four contiguous North East and North Central regions, which spread from New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Further exploration will be undertaken later to determine why this cross-regional pattern of public financing exists.

A major question that arises from the regional patterns of public financing implementation is whether significant diffusion of information or ideas has occurred within regions during the adoption process. The survey data presented in Chapter 3 shows considerable testimonial evidence that state entrepreneurs were aware and affected by of the actions of neighboring states in the years proceeding the New England full public financing initiatives of the 1990’s. However, the data is less conclusive concerning earlier measures instituted in other regions of the country. Thus, before delving into the specific cultures and characteristics of the twenty-seven states that have implemented public financing of elections, it is useful to examine any similarities within regions in type and timing of public financing measures. Figure 2.7 shows four regional groupings of three or more states, each of which instituted or reformed similar public financing systems within two election cycles of each other.

The earliest of these groupings is a set of New England states, which includes Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. All three states implemented roughly analogous simple grant funding provisions for political parties between 1973 and 1975. In a separate but similar grouping, Maine and Massachusetts joined with Vermont between 1996 and 1998 in establishing structurally similar full public financing systems for political candidates through the ballot measure mechanism. In 1992, Rhode Island established a partial public financing system for statewide candidates, but interviews and surveys from the New England states (as outlined in Chapter 3) indicate that this reform was not a major impetus for the subsequent full public financing initiatives to the north.

The second major grouping consists of three Great Lakes states, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, which established partial public financing systems for statewide candidates between 1974 and 1977.^[66] Indiana and Iowa also established public payments to political parties during this time period, but the significantly different nature of these public financing systems (both from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and from each other) indicate that their origins may not have come from the same concerns or innovations as the systems of their neighbors.

The final potential area of regional diffusion of public financing initiatives is in the mountain states of Idaho, Montana, and Utah. All three of these states established simple grants to political parties funded by similar tax check-off mechanisms between 1973 and 1975. Although very little supplemental evidence from surveys or interviews exists for these systems, their extreme similarity would indicate that conscious diffusion did occur.

Finally, implementation of full public financing measures seems to be closely related to the state ballot initiative process. Figure 2.8 shows that the majority of states allowing statutory ballot measures lie west of the Mississippi River. This regional concentration may hold the historical key to ballot initiative adoption. The first non-constitutional citizen ballot initiative took place in 1904 and the practice became popular only in the 1910’s and 1920’s, propelled forward by rising education levels and the popularity of the national constitutional amendment process.^[67] During this period, the statutory tradition of Eastern states had been developing for at least one hundred years, whereas the constitutions and common laws on the more recent western states may have still been in flux.

Since the 1960’s a number of theories have been advances equating socioeconomic development and modernization with policy tendencies and outcomes. In 1975, Ira Sharkansky drew on this literature to advance a controversial theory that many less developed portions of the United States still resembled developing countries in their political, governmental and public policy arenas.^[69] According to Sharkansky’s argument, government policies and structures were mainly a reflection of specific levels of modernization and development. This field of literature has continued to develop. Two modern indices show that there is a significant correlation between modernization and socioeconomic development and the adoption of public financing.

There is still serious controversy surrounding measures of modernization. Thus, it may be wise to begin simply. Most social scientists can agree that education is the most basic measure of social development while income is the most universal indicator of economic development. Thus, to determine broad trends in the adoption of public financing, it makes sense to start with a study of 1990 education levels and per capita income of the fifty states developed by Tom Rice and Marshall Arnett.^[70] Figure 2.6 shows that the average socioeconomic development of states with partial and full public financing measures is substantially higher than that of states with no public financing. Thus, since public financing is costly, this dichotomy seems to indicate that state resources matter in determining adoption of public financing systems.

Figure 2.9 also shows that states with simple grant systems tend to have lower levels of socioeconomic development than states without any public financing or with more comprehensive systems. The interview findings of Chapter 3, which indicate that unlike partial and full public financing legislation simple grant systems are rarely the result of significant citizen initiative, may provide a partial explanation of this correspondence.

Urbanization and social structure shifts which accompany modernization are also important measures of development. One of the most comprehensive studies examining these issues is 1997 index of modernization developed by David R. Morgan and Kenneth Kickham as a re-examination of the earliest state modernization analysis completed by John Crittenden in 1967.^[71] Morgan and Kickham base their study around John Coleman’s assertion that:

A modern society is characterized, among other things, by a comparatively high degree of urbanization, widespread literacy, comparatively high per capita income, extensive geographical and social mobility, a relatively high degree of commercialization and industrialization of the economy, an extensive and penetrative network of mass communication media, and, in general, by widespread participation and involvement by members of the society in modern social and economic processes.^[72]

Attempting to quantify this definition, Morgan and Kickham analyzed thirty-three social and economic variables from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s to isolate three major factors which characterize modern states: metro-urbanism, migratory pull, and political involvement. They then weighted these factors to provide a modernization index of all fifty states.

By standardizing Morgan and Kickhams measures and sorting them according to public financing adoption, one can see in Figure 2.7 a relationship between higher levels of modernization and adoption of public financing, though this correlation is less striking than that shown by Rice and Arnett’s socioeconomic index above. The smaller average modernization differences between states with partial and full public financing and those with no such systems indicates that public financing is more affected by higher income and education levels than by urban social structures and high levels of mobility.

Undoubtedly issues of ideology and socioeconomic development affect the willingness and ability of state governments to institute expensive and intrusive election reforms such as public financing. However, cultural attitudes toward government, democracy, and civil society may also play important roles in determining whether election reforms reach the agenda of state governments in the first place. In an earlier study to their index of socioeconomic development, Tom Rice and Alexander Sumberg formulate an index of state civic culture.^[73] Rice and Sumberg argue that there is widespread agreement among scholars that civic culture is characterized by four overarching characteristics: interpersonal trust and tolerance, a preponderance of voluntary associations, widespread egalitarian values, and significant civic engagement (i.e. an informed and participatory public).^[74] Rice and Sumberg quantify these values into a comprehensive measurement of state civic culture. In a subsequent article, Rice and Marshall Arnett use extensive archival data to form parallel indexes of state civic culture for 1930 and 1880.^[75] Rice and Arnett find that the civic culture rankings of states stay constant over time and that civic culture seems to inspire increased socioeconomic development rather than the other way around.^[76] These findings indicate that cultural issues may shape a variety of state characteristics in the present day.

Figure 2.11 shows a modest but meaningful relationship between civic culture and adoption of partial and full public financing. The civic culture of states adopting partial and full public financing is significantly above the mean, whereas the civic culture of states implementing simple grant measures or no public financing at all is below average.

The correlation between adoption of comprehensive public financing and higher levels of civic culture open up larger questions about the role of cultural characteristics in state politics. Some of the most decisive predictors of adoption of public financing measures may be attitudes toward change and innovation, government action, and democracy itself, which are not fully illustrated by the studies above. Over the years a number of theories concerning state political culture have been advanced based on geographic characteristics, immigration patterns, urban-rural dichotomies, and class factors. However, surprisingly few attempts have been made to classify states according to political culture.

Starting in the 1960’s, Thomas Dye and others advanced economic based theories of political culture, arguing that state culture and consequently public policy could be predicted by the basic socioeconomic development of state economies and populations.^[77] Subsequently, Daniel Elazar advanced a revisionist theory in his seminal 1966 work American Federalism which continues to define the study of political culture to this day. Elazar defines political culture as "the particular pattern of orientation to political action in which each political system is imbedded."^[78] Elazar contends that the political culture of the United States is made up of three discrete sub-cultures brought to the country by immigrant groups with very distinctive sociocultural differences. Elazar argues that these sub-cultures have spread across the country as it was settled by descendants of these immigrant groups and, though they perpetually evolve, these cultures continue to characterize American political interaction to this day.

Nice, mentions Elazar’s theories in his chapter on state public financing. Due to the continuing dominance of Elazar’s archetype, it will be useful to synthesize the existing literature on political culture and American settlement patterns to provide greater dimensionality to Elazar’s model. In addition, it is beneficial to integrate in certain modifications of Elazar’s model developed in the thirty-five years since its first publication.^[79]

In Elazar’s theory, populations characterized by moralistic political culture believe that government should embody the public’s values and exercise its power for the betterment of the community. Democracy and democratically elected officials are accordingly viewed positively as manifestations of the public interest and "public officials will themselves seek to initiate new government activities in an effort to come to grips with problems as yet unperceived by a majority of the citizenry."^[80] Moralistic populations have a tendency to value amateur citizen-officials who are held to high standards of public service in the general interest. Policy issues tend to be more important than political parties in the politics of moralistic societies. Consequently the population tends to embrace party switching, third party candidacies, and non-partisan competition as long as these are grounded in policy beliefs.

According to Elazar, the origin of moralistic culture lies in the Puritan settlement of New England. The cultural historian David Hackett Fischer confirms many of Elazar’s contentions through his profile of the common conception of "publick liberty" as "something which belonged not to an individual but to an entire community" in the East Anglian region of England where most New England Puritan’s haled from.^[81] As Elazar asserts, "[t]he puritans came . . . intending to establish the best possible earthly version of the holy commonwealth" and this orientation continued as Puritan descendants spread across upstate New York and the northern borders of Pennsylvania and Ohio.^[82] In the mid-nineteenth century the Puritan migration reached the upper Great Lakes where a sort of "greater New England" was formed in conjunction with recent Scandinavian and Northern European immigrants who shared related cultures and religious traditions.^[83] Pushing westward, puritan descendants settled parts of Colorado, Montana, Washington and Oregon, pockets on the California coast, and, much later, most of northern Arizona. In addition, the Mormons settlers of Utah came largely from the Puritan cultural stock of upstate New York and Ohio.^[84]

Communities with individualistic political culture view government and the democratic system largely as a utilitarian marketplace. The citizens of these areas believe government intervention should be focused mainly on facilitating private initiative, efficiency in the economy, and widespread access to the marketplace. Government generally is viewed as slightly dirty and is largely left to the administration of professionals, who, it is assumed, participate for personal and professional gain. Bureaucracy is generally viewed with ambivalence in such societies, so political parties serve as the major organizational entities within the political arena, at times functioning like private sector corporations. To preserve efficiency while preventing disruption, individualistic "political culture encourages the maintenance of a party system that is competitive, but not overly so, in the pursuit of office."^[85] In individualistic systems, new policies are rarely initiated by government actors and result mainly from public demand.^[86]

The origins of the individualistic sub-culture lie in the interior Germanic and non-puritan English settlers of the Middle Atlantic, encompassing New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The major impetus of these settlers was the search for individual opportunity in the New World. Thus, "[u]nlike the Puritans who sought communal as well as individualistic goals in their migrations, the pursuit of private ends pre-dominated among the settlers of the middle states."^[87] Even relatively unified communities, such as the Quakers of Pennsylvania, derived a "libertarian heritage" from "a later generation [and] another region of England" than the moralistic Puritans.^[88] Thus, "[f]ew public questions were introduced among the colonists [of the Middle Atlantic states] without being discussed in terms of rights and liberties" of the individual.^[89] Settlers from these Middle Atlantic states slowly moved westward through central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri before crossing the country to settle California during the goldrush in the 1840’s and 1850’s.^[90] Settlers from the California gold fields subsequently settled areas of Nebraska, Wyoming, Nevada, and Alaska in ensuing smaller migrations, often fueled by smaller gold rushes.^[91]

In an interesting side note, Elazar argues that although later waves of southern and eastern European immigrants were initially characterized by traditionalistic culture, the natural advantages of an individualistic cultural archetype in reconciling culturally disparate immigrant groups caused it to eventually triumph as the dominant culture in most areas. Consequently, many aspects of the individualistic archetype have come to characterize national American political culture.

In Elazar’s formulation, communities with traditionalistic political culture tend to view government as the patriarchal custodian of the hierarchical arrangement of society. Control of the government tends to reside in a self-perpetuating group drawn from the established elite often defined by family ties. Rather than being clean or dirty, government is considered a privilege and citizens lower down in the hierarchy are not expected to actively participate in government, and at times not even vote.^[92] In traditionalistic societies, policy is sometimes initiated by political actors, but only when it serves the interests or perpetuates the power of the ruling elite. In the past, competition within traditional societies has been largely conducted by factions within one-party systems.

The immigrants who originally populated the Southeast coast of the United States came from the same areas as those from the middle Atlantic states. However, according to a number of colonial historians, the potential cash crops of the region caused the settlers to emulate the agrarianism they observed from the landed gentry of the Old World.^[93] Fischer profiles the swift establishment of a Virginia elite by Cavalier gentry of Western England exiled by the Civil War of the 1640’s.^[94] In certain southern states, such as North Carolina, a moralistic populism was added to the cultural milieu by significant Scotch-Irish immigration in the eighteenth century.^[95] Traditionalistic culture spread as southeastern Americans pushed west through the southern United States (including southern Indiana and Illinois) into Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona (integrating with the slightly individualistic French culture along the Mississippi as it went). In areas populated partially by the Appalachian Scots-Irish, such as portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, certain elements of moralistic populism were introduced. More recently, in the twentieth century, parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida were populated by individualistic and moralistic immigrants from the Northeast.^[96] Traditionalistic culture is largely tied to pre-industrial economies, and has been slowly transitioning into a form of individualistic culture as economic development and integration have transformed the South. However, significant traditionalistic elements remain in many states.

Based on the archetypes outlined above, one can make predictions as to the types of states which would adopt public financing systems. Because of the impetus to maintain clean, citizen-based political systems in moralistic systems, one would expect that these states would adopt the most radical forms of public financing, especially full and partial systems funding candidates in exchange for specific "moral" behaviors. Erikson, Wright, and McIver find significant evidence that moralistic political culture corresponds with increased liberalism of the political elite, even when the states population is not correspondingly liberal.^[97] Thus, the positive view the elites in moralistic political cultures have toward innovation and government intervention would indicate that moralistic states might be the first to implement significant public financing measures.

Individualistic cultures would likely view public financing initiatives with the same skepticism they view most government action. The possible exceptions to this suspicion might be instances where populist elements (which can characterize individualistic systems) came to construe public financing as a measure to improve individual opportunity to gain from access to the political system. The research of Erikson, Wright, and McIver confirms Elazar’s assertion that elites in individualistic societies are more concerned with maintaining political power than implementing or opposing particular policies.^[98] Thus, campaign corruption scandals which elicited sufficient public outcry might initiate public financing adoption. Generally, the negative view of individualistic elites toward innovation would indicate that individualistic states would emulate existing public financing archetypes rather than initiating new systems.

It is likely that traditionalistic political cultures would oppose public financing systems that might threaten to upset the political hierarchy. In contrast, traditional societies might embrace simple grant systems which allocate money to political parties with no strings attached. However, traditionalistic societies would likely tend to oppose more comprehensive candidate based public financing systems, especially systems covering lower "door-keeping" offices such as state legislative races. Traditionalistic societies would also likely lag behind moralistic communities in instituting public financing, especially more comprehensive systems.

In American Federalism, Elazar creates a triangulated spectrum between the Moralistic, Individualistic, and Traditionalistic archetypes. He then designates the political culture of every state along this spectrum largely based on immigration patterns and field observations.^[99] Some states are given a modified classification, such as individualistic-moralistic if disparate political cultures have evolved together over time or if significant pockets of a minority political culture exists. In these cases, the first culture listed, such as individualistic in the example above, is considered the dominant culture while the second culture listed, moralistic in the case above, is the sub-dominant culture. Elazar’s state rankings have remained unchanged since the first edition of American Federalism in 1966.

It is important to note that Elazar’s determinations are not intended to be absolute, as culture is constantly changing. However, they are designed to be accurate predictors of tendencies within states. Subsequent research has determined that Elazar’s classifications have functioned as significant predictors of at least six variables: government activities, local emphasis, innovative activity by the government, encouragement of popular participation in elections, popular participation in elections, and party competition.^[100] However, other than a brief mention by David Nice (Policy Innovation in State Government, 1994), political culture has never been used to examine the origins of public financing of elections. Having established expectations based on Elazar’s basic theories, it is now possible to apply them to the states with existing public financing systems to determine whether political culture is an accurate predictor of public financing adoption.

Figure 2.12 shows the number of states adopting public financing measures sorted by Elazar’s political culture calculations.^[102] As would be expected, a plurality of the public financing systems have occurred in states with dominant moralistic culture and a clear majority in states with significant moralistic impulses. Elazar classifies roughly equal numbers of states as having dominant moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic cultures. However, upon integrating in sub-dominant cultures as well, there is significant variation between the number of states in each of his nine categories. Elazar defines ten states as traditionalistic-individualistic but defines none as moralistic-traditionalistic. Figure 2.13 breaks down public financing systems according to Elazar’s political culture values. In addition, since states with no public financing are included at the bottom of the chart, the total size of each column represents the number of states Elazar places in each category.

Using this graph we can see that party based simple grant systems are more common in predominantly moralistic or traditionalistic states. However, surprisingly, partial and full public financing systems are nearly as common in states with dominant or sub-dominant individualistic culture as in states with dominant or sub-dominant moralistic culture.

For further evidence concerning partial public financing adoption, one can turn to municipal systems, all of which are partial. Figure 2.14 uses Elazar’s cultural classifications of metropolitan areas to show the cultural characteristics of communities which have implemented public financing of municipal elections.^[103]

Municipal public financing systems also have a tendency to appear in areas with moralistic-individualistic or individualistic-moralistic culture. Though a larger percentage municipal systems occur in areas with dominant moralistic culture than for state systems, it is clear in both examples that a certain number of communities with significant individualistic impulses have implemented public finance systems.

The apparent anomaly of traditionalistic and individualistic states adopting relatively comprehensive campaign finance reforms can be partially explained by the survey and interview data presented in the following chapter. However, some preliminary observations can be advanced by examining the timing and nature of partial public financing systems implemented by states without significant moralistic cultural components.^[104]