Reading the Fine Print: Issue Advertisements and the Persuasive Effects of Campaign Finance Disclosures
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
| Author | Matthew Lesenyie |
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1532673X19865881 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2019
Article
American Politics Research
2020, Vol. 48(1) 155 –174
Reading the Fine Print:
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19865881
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and the Persuasive
Effects of Campaign
Finance Disclosures
Matthew Lesenyie1
Abstract
There is an expectation among practitioners that advertising disclosures
work to inform voters about who is speaking and whether they should trust
the information in the advertisement. However, existing research suggests
that current disclosure regulations may not perform as reformers expect.
These studies indicate that voters may be deceived by strategically chosen
interest group names that falsely project knowledge or trustworthiness. In
this study, I measure how actual campaign names and interest groups are
perceived by individuals in terms of their knowledge and trustworthiness.
I then experimentally vary the campaign finance disclosure within a ballot
initiative advertisement to see how these disclosures affect respondents’
issue preferences. This study found that in some cases, there was no
difference between an advertisement with no disclosure and one with a
veiled disclosure message. In other cases, this level of disclosure reduced
support for the issue. In most cases, respondents appear to condition their
support on the credibility of the campaign donor disclosed. In some cases,
respondents are deceived by the perceived credibility of campaign names
when less comprehensive disclosure is used.
1Santa Clara University, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Matthew Lesenyie, Department of Political Science, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino
Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA.
Email: mlesenyie@scu.edu
156
American Politics Research 48(1)
Keywords
advertising disclosure, campaign finance, ballot initiative
Statewide ballot propositions are popular. Many localities have them too. In
any given election, voters are likely to face direct democracy questions gen-
erated by initiatives, legislatures, cities, counties, and special districts. This
campaign environment is increasingly filled by unknown interest groups.
Propositions are unique because they have no individual contribution limits,
potentially allowing a high number of advertising buys from a few wealthy
donors. One such case is California’s Proposition 16 (2010), the Yes cam-
paign took in US$46.5 million in contributions almost entirely from Pacific
Gas & Electric Company (US$46.4 million). In this study, I examine to what
extent different campaign cues impact support for ballot initiatives. We know
that cues can both help and hinder decision making. An initial step in examin-
ing the relationship between voter competence and disclosures is testing
whether the disclosure institutions impact opinions about real-world adver-
tisements. Whether there is a difference between cues transmitted by disclo-
sure institutions and whether those differences result in a loss of information
to the electorate are questions with implications for campaign finance reform
and democracy. This study makes three findings. First, it confirms a backlash
effect to arguments made by noncredible speakers. Second, it shows that
veiled disclosure laws appear to increase the persuasiveness of arguments
made by noncredible campaign donors. Third, in three of the six advertise-
ment cases studied here, there was no difference in support between the con-
trol and veiled treatment groups. Fourth, this study reaches the limitations of
persuasion a couple instances, also known as a ceiling effect. A ceiling effect
occurs when an independent variable no longer has a measurable effect on the
dependent variable. There are two cases in this study that show potential ceil-
ing effects.1 The following sections describe the problem of veiled political
actors, how ad disclosures are studied, and how people make decisions on
ballot initiatives. I conclude with the benefits of the present research design.
Veiled Political Actors
Scholars reference a divide between a campaigner’s true identity and politi-
cal interests and what is conveyed by the legal title of the campaign entity
(Gerber & Lupia, 1999). A veiled political actor is “a political entity wish-
ing to avoid disclosure relating to the source and extent of their spending on
ballot questions” (Garrett & Smith, 2005). Commonly, they adopt names
that suggest grassroots political engagement (e.g., “Californians Against
Lesenyie
157
Higher Taxes”). In the ballot proposition context, campaign names are ad
hoc and serve a single purpose or argument, this tends to be the case for
many issue advertisement campaigns as well. Moreover, unlike more tradi-
tional interest groups that stand for long-term policy and membership goals,
these groups are unknown and singularly focused on one static, unchang-
ing, policy proposal. Experiments varying the disclosure cues in candidate
advertisements find that unknown groups tend to be persuasive (Dowling &
Wichowsky, 2015; Ridout et al., 2015; Weber, Dunaway, & Johnson, 2012).
The whole concept of a veiled political actor is that unknown group names
are strategically selected to add credibility to less popular arguments. In
this telling, a group like Ward Connerly’s antiaffirmative action group
American Civil Rights Institute could be confused with the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), falsely implying the groups share interests or
political goals. Second, unknown groups do not suffer from negative prior
associations with voters, thus providing a blank slate for less trustworthy
campaigners (Dowling & Wichowsky, 2015; Garrett & Smith, 2005). In
both ways, unknown group names can increase the persuasive power of
noncredible speakers, precisely the conditions for deception outlined by
Lupia and McCubbins (1998).
Ballot Initiatives
Ballot initiatives represent a domain where voters tend to know a lot less than
is expected of them (Bowler & Donovan, 1998). Observational studies show
that voters can use their knowledge of elites’ positions to make welfare
improving decisions (Karp, 1998; Lupia, 1994). However, one limitation of
an observational approach is that awareness of elites’ positions is likely to
covary with respondents’ sophistication or interest in the election. The treat-
ment, exposure to elites’ positions, is not randomized in a way that would
allow researchers to isolate the informational effect of the position itself. This
represents an opportunity for a study using observed political stimuli and
elite positions in a controlled experimental setting.
Deception and Ballot Initiatives
Lupia and McCubbins (1998) argue that voters use information shortcuts to
overcome their lack of comprehensive political knowledge. Using an
agency-theory framework, Lupia and McCubbins prove that cue-givers can
persuade individuals only when they meet certain conditions. The first con-
dition is knowledge. If the individual does not perceive the cue-giver as
knowledgeable, persuasion cannot occur. The second condition is common
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American Politics Research 48(1)
interests. The individual receiving the cue must believe that he and the cue-
giver desire the same outcome. When there is a conflict between the inter-
ests of the cue-giver and individual, the cue-giver can still be persuasive if
an external force, such as a threat of verification or a penalty for lying,
forces the cue-giver to divulge what he or she knows. These external forces
can substitute for common interests.
Extending Lupia and McCubbins’s (1998) logic to ballot initiatives,
Gerber and Lupia (1999) identify conditions under which endorsements of
initiatives lead to voter competence or deception. As in Lupia and
McCubbins’s theory, the outcome hinges critically on whether the endorser
shares the voter’s interests. In the initiative context, however, identifying
endorsers with common interests is particularly difficult because populist
sounding campaign names can mistakenly convey shared interests, thereby
empowering them to deceive voters seeking expert advice. For example, the
group Californians to Protect Our Right to Vote has a prodemocracy ring to
it. In reality, the group is created and wholly sponsored by Pacific Gas &
Electric Company to advocate a normatively less democratic policy. Garrett
and Smith (2005) cover this campaign strategy at length, naming the murky
interest group identities “veiled political actors.” The U.S. Supreme Court
called such groups “dubious sounding” in McConnell v. FEC (2002) and
reiterated the point again in Citizens United v. FEC (2010). Such campaign
names project more trustworthiness or expertise than does the major cam-
paign donor. Therefore, their participation in ballot campaigns is likely to
deceive voters if they mistakenly perceive that such veiled groups are
knowledgeable and share their interests.
A variety of observational studies test the logic of Lupia and McCubbins
(1998) and Gerber and Lupia (1999) in the initiative context. For example,
Lupia (1994) examined whether voters could use knowledge of the insur-
ance industry’s position on ballot initiatives about automobile insurance to
make informed decisions about those measures. He found that voters were
able to use these interest groups’ support or opposition for the proposals as
a cue for how...
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