Privacy for Candidates vs. Information for Voters

March-April LD Topic on Privacy                 Term Limits may be a better alternative than privacy-invading candidate reporting requirements.   Back to NCPA Debate Home Page

The Public's Right to Know vs. Candidates' Right to Privacy March-April Lincoln-Douglas Topic: Resolved: that the public's right to know ought to be valued above the right to privacy of candidates for public office. The resolution highlights difficulties caused by the proliferation of rights claims in political discussion. The resolution claims two positive rights exist: the public's right to know and political candidates' right to privacy. Yet neither of these seem to be basic rights like the rights to life and liberty. Did the public have a right to know, for example, that candidate George W. Bush was once ticketed for driving after drinking over the legal limit? If the public did have such a right, then who had the obligation to provide this information? It would be much better to think of the issue from a different perspective: no one should have the power to stop this information from being revealed. The government should not be able to compel the New York Times or ABC News to run a story about a DWI ticket candidate Bush got a decade or two ago, but neither should the government be able to block the publication of this information. People involved should be able to use their own judgment. First the people with the information have to decide whether to give the information to the media. Then individual editors at media firms have to decide whether the story is newsworthy (and perhaps whether this information was gathered in a way that unjustly invaded privacy). And finally, everyday people decide whether they care enough about the story to read the articles or watch the TV news segments. But all of this is a process significantly different than that implied by the resolution. We could say that the government has an obligation to protect our property rights by finding and recovering property stolen from us (and prosecuting the thief). But government doesn't have an equal obligation to find and report information about candidates that we have a "right to know." Since rights entail obligations, if a "right to know" were to exist, it would create an obligation on someone's part to provide information. On the negative, debaters can argue that the public has no positive right to know information about candidates or anyone else. The public is welcome to read whatever information a candidate volunteers and to evaluate whatever information reporters uncover about candidates. But naturally the process of running for office involves candidates trying to persuade voters that they are worthy of being elected (or more worthy than other candidates). This process tends to bring out information reflecting upon the character of the candidate. No one should have the power to interfere with the free flow of information about candidates and the political process. Journalists should be able to do their investigative reporting without harassment or the threat of punishment by federal agencies. Current public disclosure rules for candidates forces them to provide personal financial information. The reasonable concern is that special interests could bribe political candidates in various ways. So here is a privacy invasion that current legislation forces upon candidates. Candidates could keep this information private, but only if they chose not to run for office. Attaching this condition to someone running for office assumes that the privacy intrusion is justified by the public's "right to know"-- and assumes that similar information could not be gathered and reported by the normal voluntary process. In the status quo reporters can pour over financial records that candidates are required to submit. An alternative and perhaps better way to generate similar information is to interview business associates. In fact the latter probably does a better job of revealing key issues of character. Further, candidates rarely run for important public offices until they have served in less important public offices. Reporters and the public have the opportunity to learn about their likely behavior in higher office by the way they conducted themselves in lower political positions. The argument is made that by running for office people should give up some of their privacy. Like movie actors who spend their early years pursuing publicity and later years avoiding it, politicians should understand that publicity and diminished privacy go with the territory. But this perspective assumes that people are or should pursue politics as a long-term career. There are strong arguments against this perspective, both historical and political. The drafters of the U.S. Constitution envisioned a citizen legislature. Their ideal was that average (or above-average) citizens would put aside their everyday lives for a few years to serve in a citizen legislature. After providing this public service they would and should return to their private lives. The concern of all America's founding fathers was that long-term exposure to the pressure and perks of political office would either corrupt people or at the least transform them into servant of the government rather than servants of the public. Consider then the harm done to this vision of a citizen legislature by mandatory financial reporting requirements. People who might be willing to run for office and to serve for a term or two as part of what they conceive to be their civic duty are put off by the onerous reporting requirements and the invasion of privacy they represent. For more on the idea of citizen legislators (as opposed to career politicians) see the web site of U.S. Term Limits. Click here for the U.S. Term Limits web site. ----- Highly recommended is the thoughtful introductory analysis of this Lincoln-Douglas topic on the Victory Briefs web site. Patrick Fitch of Lake Highland H.S. gives an overview of the topic, including experience debating the topic last summer at the Iowa debate camp. Click here to go to his article on the Victory Briefs web site.   --Greg Rehmke