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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104120936
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOLDEN PARACHUTES FOR CONGRESSMEN

WHEN M. Caldwell Butler of Roanoke retired from the House of Representatives in 1982, he could have pocketed $10,280 in leftover campaign funds as a bonus for his decade of congressional service. Instead, he donated the money to fellow Republicans, running for various offices in Virginia.

However, 72 other House members who departed Congress between 1979 and 1990 opted to take advantage of a sweet loophole in election laws that allowed them to take the money and run.

According to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, those 72 converted $6 million in political contributions to their personal use. Virginians who benefited, by about $144,850, included the heirs of the late Rep. Dan Daniel, D-5th; the late Rep. J. Kenneth Robinson, R-7th; and former Rep. William C. Wampler Sr., R-9th.

The loophole, a so-called grandfather clause for House members elected before 1980, will be closed in 1992, under a deadline set by a 1989 ethics law. (Under current law, members elected after 1980 can give excess campaign funds to charities or political parties or use them to support their political activities while in office, as senators do now. But they can't hoard them for their personal use upon retirement.)

Yet 166 senior lawmakers - more than one-third of House members - still qualify under the loophole. If all these "grandfathers" use it as a golden parachute, the Federal Election Commission estimates it would be worth about $41 million to them. With that kind of financial incentive, in addition to increased congressional pensions, some analysts predict record numbers of incumbents will be inspired to call it quits next year.

A big turnover in Congress might not be a bad idea. The loophole's one-time windfall might have the salutary effect of cleaning the House of a lot of deadwood. But when lawmakers take for their personal use money contributed to them for political campaigns, that comes close to legal larceny.

Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, points out that the practice is, indeed, a felony in most places. A city councilman who pockets unused campaign funds can be sent to prison for theft. How could the House of Representatives ever have determined that pocketing campaign money is legal? Well, it all depends on who writes the laws.

Which is why this issue is larger than the money involved. When institutional corruption is endemic, it becomes the norm; when it becomes the norm, it is no longer considered wrong. The grandfathering of leftover campaign funds is only a part, only a reflection of the corruption suffusing Congress as a result of inadequate campaign-finance laws.

Nothing so undermines public confidence in institutions like Congress as elected officials' greed.

by CNB