Defending Political Contributions in the Diet

Maybe not a winning strategy

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun
The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
December 9, 2024. Special to Asia Policy Point

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba spent the first week of December in the Diet defending his proposed policies. The main issue was greater visibility into political fundraising. Although the opposition parties urge the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to prohibit donations from companies and organizations, the LDP remains reluctant to do so. These donations are critical income for the LDP and other parties. The Democratic Party for the People (DPP), which has crucial votes in the House of Representatives, is siding with the leading coalition.
 
Both Houses of the Diet usually hold a question session for party leaders in the Plenary Sittings a few days after a prime minister’s policy speech. The session typically takes three days. Questions in the Lower House are asked on the first day and in the afternoon of the second day. Those in the Upper House are scheduled in the morning of the second day and the whole of the third day. The prime minister and other cabinet ministers may face questions from their own party leaders as well as from the opposition parties. The question session is in the form of one question and one answer without any follow-up.
 
The question session in the Plenary Sittings is followed by detailed discussions of the policies in the Committees for the Budget in both the Lower House and the Upper House. Each budget committee held a one-day meeting for questions by party leaders in this extraordinary session of the Diet. Other policy experts make detailed questions in the following meetings until the supplementary budget pass the committee. The opposition parties focus their attention on the budget committee discussions because they can go deeply into the weeds on the policies of leading parties. The budget committee discussions are not limited to the one-question-and-one-answer restriction.
 
Given his minority government, Ishiba had to protect his administration from broad reforms backed by the opposition parties. In the budget committee session of the House of Representatives, the head of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), Yoshihiko Noda, proposed a prohibition of political donations from companies and organizations.
 
In response, Ishiba wisely eschewed the dismissive attitude to the opposition parties that Shinzo Abe had adopted. Instead, Ishiba employed a legal argument. Ishiba contended that Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan, which guarantees freedom of expression, did not allow the Diet to prohibit such contributions.
 
“A company expresses its opinion through donation,” Ishiba told Noda. For Ishiba, a donation from a company to a political party, including a purchase of fundraising party tickets, is an act of expression. Freedom of expression is ordinarily guaranteed to protect the people from oppression by the government. Limits on political donations by companies or organizations are, to Ishiba, governmental oppression of business.
 
The opposition also argued that there was an agreement several years ago to prohibit company and organization donations. A former LDP president, Yohei Kono, recalled that his decision in 1994 to review donations from companies and organizations five years later in 1999 was an agreement to end such contributions within five years. Ishiba said the LDP had never made that kind of promise.
 
Ishiba insisted that disclosure of company and organization contributions was preferable to their abolition. Obviously, disclosure in general is important. The debate is not, however, a comparison of disclosure and abolition. The LDP will defer legislative action on contributions to next year, rejecting a request from the opposition parties to conclude work on political reform in the current extraordinary session. 
 
The LDP shared a draft of a revised Political Funds Control Act with the opposition parties. The statute would terminate the policy activity fund, prohibit the distribution of funds from the party to its members unless the use of the funds is disclosed, and establish a third-party organization to monitor political funds.
 
The CDPJ and some opposition parties submitted their own bill to amend the Political Funds Control Act to (among other things) bar company and organization contributions. The DPP did not, however, join in. Instead, the DPP agreed to co-sponsor a reform bill with Komeito, which would not contain a similar amendment. The LDP is supposed to collaborate with Komeito and DPP on their bill, as the LDP did on tax reform.
 
Ishiba continues to promote disclosure requirements in place of a prohibition. He has proposed that the Upper House lawmakers involved in the kickback scandal testify before the political ethics council if they wish to be official candidates in the election next summer. Most of the members were willing to do so. But Ishiba’s proposal would not require full disclosures, nor would it require testimony under oath. 
 
Japanese voters are beginning to understand that Ishiba’s concept of political reform is limited. While he is willing to accept minor limits on political fundraising and expenditures, such as the policy activities fund, he is not courageous enough to support fundamental reforms such as the abolition of contributions from companies and organizations.