Rules to improve presidential elections

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” Federalist 51 tells us. “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” So too, if men were angels we’d get better presidential candidates. But since they aren’t, some “internal controls” on candidates and elections might attend to our selection process. We consider three areas in which such controls can be increased:

Disclosure: Donald Trump has demonstrated we cannot rely on historical precedent to induce candidates’ disclosure of basic information about their financial and legal affairs.

Redo campaign finance reform: If the Supreme Court reverses Citizens United (a good possibility if Hillary Clinton is elected and gets to appoint one or more justices), which held that independent spending by third parties could not be regulated as are donations directly to candidates or political parties, there is an opportunity to enhance the power of political parties. Decades of campaign finance reform plus Citizens United has left us with the worst of all worlds: Political parties are diminished; fringe candidates can survive on the largesse of a few billionaires or special interest groups; and more money comes from sources where disclosure is not required than from parties and candidates who are required to disclose their donors.