A Modest Proposal: Symmetric Mutual Deterrence in Campaign Finance

November 10, 2025

There's a problem with unlimited campaign spending. You know it, I know it, the Supreme Court knows it. Dark money can corrupt outcomes. But here's what makes it interesting: we don't know which side the corruption will corrupt.

Real estate developers might spend $124 million to defeat rent control. Or labor unions might spend similar amounts to pass it. Tech billionaires fund both parties. Pharmaceutical companies hedge their bets. The corruption isn't partisan—it flows toward whoever offers the best return on investment.

So what if we used that uncertainty? What if we created a mechanism where corruption becomes economically inefficient from any direction, without restricting speech or picking sides?

The Mechanism

Here's the idea. It's simple enough to describe in a paragraph, though as we'll see, implementation would be more complex.

Ballot measure spending goes into escrow. Half automatically flows to the opposing campaign. This applies equally to both Yes and No campaigns. No spending caps—unlimited speech remains allowed. We're just changing the economics.

If real estate wants to spend $124 million to defeat rent control, they put $124 million in escrow. $62 million automatically funds the Yes campaign. To maintain their spending advantage, they'd need $248 million total. Suddenly corruption is twice as expensive.

But it works symmetrically. If labor wants to spend $80 million for the Yes campaign, half funds the opposition. Neither side gets an unfair advantage. Both face the same market price for attempting to buy outcomes.

Why This Might Survive Constitutional Challenge

Now, I'm not a lawyer. But there's something interesting about how this fits—or doesn't fit—with existing precedent.

In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down Arizona's matching funds system in Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion. His reasoning was clear: the government can't justify campaign finance restrictions by claiming it needs to "level the playing field." That's not a valid government interest under the First Amendment.

But Roberts explicitly endorsed a different government interest: preventing corruption. That remains constitutionally valid.

Here's where this proposal differs from Arizona's system in ways that might matter:

First, it's symmetric. Arizona gave government money to publicly financed candidates when their privately financed opponents spent more. That created an asymmetric advantage. This mechanism treats both sides identically. If equal burdens on both sides create "no net burden," then perhaps it's not a burden at all—just market pricing.

Second, the purpose is different. Arizona was explicitly trying to level the playing field. This isn't. This is deterring corruption by making it economically inefficient, regardless of which side attempts it. We're not trying to equalize spending—we're trying to make buying outcomes prohibitively expensive.

Third, it's private money, not government funding. Arizona used taxpayer dollars. This redirects private campaign money. The government isn't adding funds or picking winners—it's just creating a market structure where corruption costs more.

Does this survive First Amendment scrutiny? I don't know. Roberts might see the "equal burden" argument as sophistry. He might view any consequence that triggers based on speech as an impermissible burden, regardless of symmetry. But there's at least an argument here worth examining.

The Economics of Deterrence

Think about what this does to the math of corruption.

A corrupt actor—let's say a real estate developer or pharmaceutical company—needs a return on their spending. They're not donating out of civic duty. They're investing, expecting a favorable outcome that pays back more than they spent.

Under current rules, spending $100 million to defeat a regulation that would cost you $500 million makes perfect business sense. But under this mechanism, you'd need $200 million to maintain the same spending advantage. And your opponent—who might have scraped together $30 million—suddenly has $130 million total.

The economics shift. Corruption becomes inefficient. Not impossible—truly motivated actors with massive resources could still try. But the cost doubles while the return stays the same. That changes the calculation.

And here's what makes it elegant: we're not claiming big money is corrupt. We're just saying if corrupt money enters from any direction, then the mechanism makes it inefficient. Therefore corrupt actors are deterred.

It's like making bribery more expensive without actually banning it.

What This Isn't

Let me be clear about what I'm not claiming.

I'm not saying this solves campaign finance. It doesn't address dark money, PAC coordination, or independent expenditures. Those are real problems requiring different solutions.

I'm not saying implementation would be simple. Tracking all spending, preventing laundering, determining when funds release, handling cases where one side doesn't organize to claim funds—these are genuine challenges.

I'm not saying the Supreme Court would uphold it. Roberts might see this as clever semantics wrapped around the same "leveling the playing field" purpose he rejected in Arizona. He might be right.

And I'm definitely not saying this is the only approach worth considering. Democracy Vouchers, public financing, disclosure requirements—there are multiple tools in the toolkit, each with tradeoffs.

An Invitation

This appears to be a novel mechanism. I searched existing campaign finance systems—Democracy Vouchers in Seattle, various matching fund programs, public financing schemes—and found nothing quite like symmetric escrow with mandatory opposition funding.

Which means either I've stumbled onto something genuinely new, or there's an obvious flaw I'm missing. Both possibilities seem likely.

So I'm floating this as an idea for discussion, not a complete solution. Constitutional scholars may see angles I've missed. Campaign finance experts may spot implementation problems I haven't considered. Political realists may explain why it's dead on arrival.

All of that is useful. Because if the core principle holds—using symmetric market forces to deter corruption from any source without restricting speech—then maybe there's a version of this worth pursuing. And if it doesn't hold, better to find out why and move on to other approaches.

Either way, we learn something.

Brian Ball is a former technology executive (IBM, Tandem VP, Microsoft GM) who spent decades building systems. Now he writes about understanding and challenging systemic issues in politics and economics. This article reflects his personal analysis and should not be considered legal advice. Constitutional questions should be directed to actual lawyers, not retired technologists floating ideas.

← Back to Articles