We live in an era of weak formal party organizations alongside high polarization. Over the past decades, formal party organizations have become less central to the funding of campaigns, candidate recruitment, and mobilizing voters. Meanwhile, partisan polarization among policymakers has increased; the national parties have become more ideologically distant from each other and less willing to compromise. A good deal of scholarship links this heightened polarization to a less effective and functional legislative branch, which in turn has encouraged presidents to enact policy via unilateral action.

The proposal to strengthen formal party organizations may seem counterintuitive if polarization is a problem. Yet it is not surprising that polarization has blossomed at the same time party organizations have weakened. Party organizations have an incentive to nominate and support candidates who are likely to win the general election. And even in recent years, more moderate candidates have had the electoral edge in general elections. Strengthening party organizations would therefore increase the likelihood that ideological moderates are nominated and ultimately elected.

The current weakness of party organizations is a function of congressional acts, Supreme Court decisions, and technological shocks that have decentered parties from the electoral process by severely limiting their fundraising ability relative to that of other political actors. The basic legal framework harkens back to the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act and its subsequent 1974 amendments, when Congress limited coordinated expenditures between parties and candidates and placed restrictions on campaign contributions to party organizations. Yet critically, this system was fundamentally altered by a series of developments starting in the 1990s. After Republicans captured the House majority in the 1994 elections, they ended the norm of basing committee chairs on seniority, ushering in a system in which fundraising could play a much more significant role. At that time, the main source of campaign funds was political action committees (PACs), which primarily gave to incumbents and likely winners. As the internet took off in the late 1990s, however, individual donors soon eclipsed PACs as the primary funding source, enabling challengers to raise substantial funds more easily. This shift placed pressure on incumbents to prioritize the money race.

In theory, party organizations could have still played a substantial role in fundraising. Yet the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, which Senators McCain and Feingold began working on before the internet dramatically altered the fundraising landscape, eliminated this possibility. Following these developments, the Supreme Court in 2010 ruled in Citizens United that organizations independent of campaigns faced no limits on campaign donations, further increasing the pressure on members to compete with SuperPACs and other independent spending. Finally, throughout this period, majority status in Congress remained highly competitive, making each election one that could tip the balance of power.

Scholarship establishes that this campaign finance environment has impaired legislative policymaking in at least three ways. First, it has contributed to polarization and extremism. Individual donors, including small donors, are more polarized than even primary electorates. The current fundraising dynamics force members to rely on this source over party organizations, which have incentives to support moderates who have a higher chance of winning. Second, fundraising takes time away from committee work and the negotiations necessary to solve major policy challenges. And third, policy itself has become more reflective of the positions of donors, creating representational biases at the expense of the general public.

Giving party organizations a central role in fundraising would help mitigate these problems. To achieve this, Congress could raise the amounts individuals can give to parties and increase what parties can spend in coordination with candidates. Critics might argue that further restrictions on other types of donations would be better.  However, given the legal framework in which SuperPACs can raise unlimited amounts for independent spending, simply curbing donations to campaigns would be insufficient to restore parties to a central role.

At this time of writing, the Supreme Court is deciding National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, in which the plaintiffs argue the restrictions on coordinated spending are unconstitutional. The point here is not to argue the constitutionality of the matter, but rather that regardless, the current system is undesirable. Technological and campaign finance developments since the 1990s have decentered parties and, by doing so, encouraged elite polarization and responsiveness to donors. To foster a more functional and representative government, we must empower party organizations in elections and campaigns.