Distributive Autonomy and the Foundational Problem of Campaign Finance

This chapter sketches the long-standing collision between traditional philosophical conceptions of liberty and equality, how campaign finance jurisprudence exemplifies this collision, and how the new principle of distributive autonomy avoids this collision. Distributive autonomy aims to achieve some congruence, fusion—perhaps even some synthesis—between the core constitutional values of liberty and equality in the touchy realm of first-order rights. Elections comprehend and profoundly shape autonomy, democracy, and distribution of power and wealth. Political campaigns erect the government, and government passes laws that routinely infringe on the autonomy of some and enhance that of others. Laws affect such first-order rights as political influence, privacy, and freedom from imprisonment, and lower-order rights involving the distribution of wealth and other matters. By permitting individuals to spend vast sums to influence political campaigns, the campaign finance cases shifted the entire paradigm of American democracy from decision-making based on participatory democracy to decision-making driven by donations.

Autonomy · Campaign finance · Democracy · Distributive justice · Economic Justice · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Legal and Constitutional Studies