Let’s talk about political discourse

One thing Iowans know is political discourse. They show up to see caucus candidates speak in rain or snow. They voice their caucus choices in public meetings instead of private voting booths. But Iowans also watch endless candidate commercials. They answer poll after poll on the phone. And they wonder - who pays for all these ads, and should they be on the air? Do Twitter and YouTube give modern candidates freedom to say too many crazy things? And of course, should the rest of the country follow Iowa's path on the caucus and redistricting?

Sometimes it's refreshing to step outside the fight among candidates to spend some time learning and debating these key issues in modern elections. The Iowa Public Policy Center presents an opportunity for such discussions on Friday, Dec. 4 in Iowa City. During, 'Political Discourse: The Impact of Redistricting, Campaign Finance, and the Media,” we consider how these three issues shape the modern elections we see. For each issue, we'll hear an expert lay out the overall problems. Three additional experts present more detailed evidence within each problem. Then: we discuss and debate. How can we fix these modern election problems? Or are they even problems to address?

Probably one the best known - and most challenging - problems we consider is campaign finance. The 2010 Citizens United case allowed non-profit groups to spend unlimited funds on elections. This case took the U.S. from 40 years of limiting and controlling campaign spending (or at least trying to), to debates about whether spending in elections is free speech in America. Practically, we know the outcome of Citizens United is a great deal of election advertising. But the consequences of Citizens United - superPACs and candidate strategy - are more elusive. Should we require all groups to disclose their donors and their spending patterns? If so, how might we best track entities like the Congressional Campaign Committees, who reshuffle money to tight congressional races? Or, is regulating campaign finance a lost cause or even an affront to free speech?

In our first panel, our overview expert Paul Herrnson of the Roper Center and the University of Connecticut presents the current picture of campaign finance. Within this picture, Bob Biersack of the Center for Responsive Politics (a nonpartisan organization that follows campaign money) talks about disclosure - or public tracking of money - as one alternative to give citizens knowledge of where money comes from and where money goes. David Magleby of Brigham Young University takes us on a tour of superPACs to understand their origins and influence. Finally, Robin Kolodny of Temple University focuses on congressional campaign finance in the mysterious Congressional Campaign Committees. These committees help partisans in each house of Congress collect and redistribute money to tight House and Senate races in order to maximize their party's representation in Congress - yet they are not openly visible to the ordinary voter.

Hand in hand with campaign finance, media coverage shapes modern elections. Candidates plan their campaigns to maximize positive media exposure, and new media offer a whole host of additional connections with voters. For candidates, the draws of new media are the freedom of content, the ability to target, and, of course, the low price compared to TV advertising. A candidate can craft a quick message to a particular group of voters through YouTube, or he or she can respond quickly to a snarky barb with a 140-character comeback on Twitter. New media can backfire on candidates, too, however. Virtually unregulated, on-the-fly, and ubiquitous, new media can also capture a candidate's slip of the tongue or craft a sharp attack with less restraint than traditional media.

Marjorie Hershey of Indiana University begins this panel with an overview of changes in how media cover elections in the 21st century. Daniel Kreiss of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill then presents his fascinating research on how parties use new media to craft messages and win elections. Kelly Dittmer of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University offers a focus on how new media especially affect women candidates by allowing a double-edged sword of gender targeted and sexist messages to flow in the Twitterverse. Matt Levendusky of the University of Pennsylvania finishes the panel by asking whether, and to what degree, partisan media matter. Do Americans filter the news they receive - a process made infinitely easier by new media? Does this selective exposure affect political opinions and discourse?

Finally, we focus on a seemingly unconnected - but actually quite consequential - problem of modern congressional elections. Most states allow the state legislators to redistrict, or redraw the congressional and state legislative district lines, every ten years after the Census. These lines determine which voters live in which districts and ultimately, who wins legislative office and even the Electoral College in the U.S. Iowa, unlike most states, takes this job away from the legislature and puts it into nonpartisan hands.

But what does it mean that most states allow redistricting to be a political process? Michael Crespin of the Carl Albert Center at the University of Oklahoma starts us off with an overview of the modern redistricting processes in the US. Tom Brunell of the University of Texas at Dallas then considers the consequences of partisan redistricting - when partisans carve districts carefully to benefit themselves and doom the other party - for citizen representation in Congress. Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California offers evidence of what a change to a less partisan redistricting system can mean with a before-and-after analysis of California's recent switch to redistricting by a bipartisan panel. Tim Hagle of the University of Iowa finishes the discussion with a focus on the Voting Rights Act and racial redistricting. A recent Supreme Court case, Shelby County v. Holder (2013), questions whether and how states should consider race in redistricting, especially in states with large minority populations.

The most important piece of these panels, however, is you - the citizens of Eastern Iowa. Our goal in the upcoming symposium is to stimulate real, in-depth, bipartisan political discourse. Each panel concludes with extended time for questions and discussion of what Iowans want to see in modern elections. Do you think campaign finance is out of control, or do you support all campaign spending under the First Amendment? Do you worry about or celebrate the proliferation of new media in American elections? Do you wish all states redistricted like Iowa, or is the right to create legislative districts part of the spoils of partisan warfare? We need you to join us on Dec. 4 for engaging political discourse to find out.

' Tracy Osborn is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. More information: ppc.uiowa.edu/forkenbrock/political-discourse-2015