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Campaign Financing: Rigid Rules Reduce Rottennes
Published Saturday, May 10, 1997

Why don’t we take a look at our national embarrassment, our totally corrupt system of federal election campaign financing?
 
Both Newt Gingrich’s and Bill Clinton’s recent troubles come from raising money to get elected.  One would suspect that practically every Senator and Representative has contribution skeletons in the closet.  Our legislators may argue that they’re not in the pockets of Big Tobacco, the unions, defense contractors or the NRA, but that insults our intelligence.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and representatives know that when contributors pay something, they expect to get something.
 
If a spy gives a defense worker $100,000, that’s treason.  If a construction contractor gives a mayor $10,000, that’s a bribe.  But if Gallo gives $750,000 to the Democrats and $750,000 to the Republicans, that’s the American Political Process.  And somehow we believe Gallo has no self-interest!  I suspect there’s something wrong with taking big lumps of money from a small number of contributors.
 
Now, politicians will say two things to us, and they’re both insults.
 
First, “It takes a lot of money to get elected.”  Of course it does, and the use of the money is offensive.  Most of the money is used to pay for non-information TV spots broadcast to gullible voters.  It’s hard to feel sympathy for politicians who spend millions to peddle themselves like cornflakes, tell half-truths about themselves, tell lies about their opponents, and generally hammer the voters with distortions.
 
Second, “I have to spend a lot of time raising money.”  Frankly, I’m not interested in a legislator’s excuses why he/she can’t spend more time on the job, or his plan for perpetuating his time in Washington.  Besides, it only takes a few contributions from special interests.  Republican Party officials will tell you that they have enormous support from the grass roots, but that’s true only insofar as the number of checks.  The percentage of dollars from the grass roots is a trifle.
 
There’s solution.  I propose to regulate campaign financing big-time, with real rules, not the wimpy loophole-filled stuff we’ve had in the past.
 
This is appropriate, because elections are absolutely vital to our way of life.  Besides, lawmakers regulate us all the time.  If they want to posture about a problem without solving it, or maybe raise a little money, they pass a law.
 
There are only two rules:
 
First, no more fundraising. Not a cent. No hard money to candidates; no soft money to parties.  I propose it be a felony to offer money to a candidate.  This will save legislators an enormous amount of time.  It will eliminate our representatives kissing up to corporate contributors or lining up like puppets behind party leadership despite the dictates of conscience.
 
Second, we, the people, will give each of you, exactly the same amount of money to run for office.  Go spend it on what you want, but be prepared to account for it -- and you have to give the unused part back.  This will put third and fourth party candidates on the map.  This may even help the candidate who runs as a “fiscal conservative.”  Let’s see if he or she blows the whole wad.
 
Here’s the math for funding federal elections.  Assume it takes about $100 million to campaign for the office of president, about $20 million for senator, and a stingy $2 million for representative.  Assume there are four viable candidates for each office.  Give them the money.  That means it costs us only $3.48 billion for the House, $8 billion for the Senate, and a mere $400 million for the Presidency.  This $11.88 billion is cheap, compared to just about every program in government.  Further, these costs don’t come up every year, so this is a real bargain.
 
This large amount of money allows the candidate to buy lots of TV time.  I don’t rely on Westinghouse, Time-Warner or ABC Capitol Cities to give away time, even though the public owns the airwaves.  There is no restraint on free speech, although for this amount of money, you’d think the public deserves at least one mandatory debate -- with the time donated by the networks.
 
The chances these changes becoming reality?  Well, since they would be have to be implemented by politicians, I’d say the chances were fat, slim, and none.
 
Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and a ten-year resident of Nevada County. You can write to him at barry@wvswrite.com. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union.
 

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