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Commentary: Elections For Sale, Still

By Bill Collins

Star light, star bright,

I don't need your wish tonight;

I paid off Congress, so you see,

Wishes now come fast to me.

Sometimes you wish a newspaper column could include pictures. I'm holding a

photo of President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich shaking hands. Smiling. It's

from June 11, 1995. They had just been cornered by a New Hampshire audience

into agreeing to reform political fundraising.

Those smiles, as we now know, were insincere. The independent commission,

which both agreed that night to set up, never happened. The president,

enjoying the fundraising powers of his office, continued blithely putting

those powers to good use. The speaker did even worse. He launched a bill to

allow still larger gifts to politicians and political parties.

That bill died, fortunately, with 68 conscience-stricken Republicans helping

to administer the lethal injection. That took character, voting against their

speaker. Not to mention voting against their own self-interest. Most

lawmakers, both state and federal, lack that kind of character.

But it's too bad the New Hampshire idea did not prosper. An independent

commission just might work. Even here in Connecticut. That's no doubt why it

was aborted. Neither the president, the speaker, nor the General Assembly

relishes a high-powered proposal for true reform which might succeed. To

oppose it could cost them votes; but to accept it would cost them a lot of

money.

So the best thing to do was simply ignore it, and let the whole memory fade

away. That successful strategy has allowed the current corrupt system to live

on, both in Washington and in Hartford. Specifically, it is a system which

permits wealthy individuals to give a few grand to the candidates of their

choice, usually incumbents. And which also permits them, if they still feel

unfulfilled, to give a few more grand in the names of their spouses and

children.

Nationally even these generous limits do not apply if the donors or their

companies are game to give to a political party, rather than to individual

candidates. Amway, for example, gave the Republicans $1.3 million to cover the

cost of broadcasting their convention on Pat Robertson's cable station. You

can bet his coverage gave a very different slant from what appeared on the

networks.

At the same time, Republican leaders of the House Appropriations Committee

were trying to cut the staff of the Federal Elections Commission. The FEC is

the toothless watchdog charged with preventing a whole catalog of campaign

scams. It lacks money, staff, or mandate to do a proper job. Nonetheless, its

disclosures can prove embarrassing, so some incumbents wanted to weaken it

even more.

And then there is the Supreme Court. It recently allowed the political parties

themselves to spend as much as they like on ads for any of their candidates,

as long as the ads are carefully worded. That helps circumvent current

contribution limits.

The results of this increasingly laissez-faire election system are plain. In

Connecticut's 1994 campaign for governor, 75 percent of the money came from

one-fifth of one percent of the population. That's common. And this pattern of

political obligation leads to major corporate welfare schemes.

But blessed Maine has just done something constructive. It passed an

initiative which provides for public financing of state elections. No more fat

cats holding IOUs over the heads of newly-elected officials. No more

candidates sitting at the phone all day raising money instead of campaigning.

Of course Connecticut doesn't have an initiative system like Maine's, but the

General Assembly could pass the same thing. So, for that matter, could

Congress. But neither one will, on its own hook. We'll have to light a fire

under them.

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)