
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120423
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MORE PRESSURE FOR CAMPAIGN REFORM

THE SENATE Ethics Committee's decision last month in the so-called Keating Five affair was a woefully inadequate but predictable outcome in the clubby Senate. Still, if the overall effect is to increase pressure for campaign-finance reform - and that certainly should be the effect - the episode will have proved worthwhile.

Five U.S. senators, you'll recall, did the bidding of their financial benefactor, S&L owner Charles Keating, at huge expense to their constituents and country. Keating contributed well over $1 million to the five senators' campaigns and favorite political causes while federal regulators were investigating his Lincoln Savings and Loan. The senators intervened in varying degrees. Some time later, Lincoln failed. The bailout could cost taxpayers as much as $2 billion.

After exhaustive hearings that exposed the seamier side of how Congress works, the ethics committee affected a stern response that in fact let all but one of the Keating Five off easy. Ignoring their own special counsel's advice, the committee members charged only Alan Cranston, D-Calif., with major ethical violations. In a letter, two other senators were accused of "poor judgment." Otherwise, no other action is anticipated.

Punishment more serious than a slap on the wrist was always improbable. From the start of this affair, drawing ethical lines has been complicated by ambiguities of "constituent services" and the appearance of widespread similar behavior. The Keating Five may have gone to greater lengths than others to please a big contributor, but it's clear the campaign-finance system forces all legislators into an ethical bind.

Which is why the Keating affair's greatest value may be as a symbol of the breakdown of representative government, as a reminder that Congress remains on the auction block. The episode helps explain why, according to a recent poll, 71 percent of Americans believe Congress members are more interested in serving special interests than in serving their constituents. In another poll, 41 percent said they believe Congress members are "financially corrupt."

There seems little point now in debating whether, in essence, the current campaign-finance system is corrupt or the elections system rigged. Of course they are. A spending spree is under way, and private influence dominates. If you question these facts, you have to assume well-heeled contributors are wasting their money.

The question now is whether Congress will do something. The members themselves seem acutely aware that public confidence in their institution has reached an all-time low. But agreement on a comprehensive reform package has proved elusive. Partisanship gets in the way. And incumbents are wary of any change in a system that has brought them election and re-election.

Perhaps they must be convinced that not reforming the system will prove the greater threat to their political careers.

by CNB