Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993 TAG: 9302220256
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CONGRESS
IN THE Doesn't-This-Take-The-Cake Department:A year ago, grandstanding congressional Democrats passed campaign-finance reform legislation. Among other things, it encouraged voluntary spending limits in exchange for first-time public funding of congressional campaigns, and imposed restrictions on contributions from political-action committees.
Under the proposed spending limits, House incumbents and challengers might have had to scrape by on $600,000 per election cycle. (That's $600,000 for a primary plus another $600,000 for the general election.) The proposed limit on a Senate campaign ranged from $1.5 million to $8.2 million per election cycle, depending on the size of the state.
But now, reportedly, Democratic lawmakers are complaining that they couldn't possibly run campaigns on such miserly amounts. If they support President Clinton's "tax-and-spend" plan to reduce the deficit and bolster the economy, they say it will take every cent they can possibly raise to explain it to voters.
Too, there is the clunk of Clinton's proposal to bar members of the executive and legislative branches from some lobbying jobs after they leave office. Campaign-finance reform could make it harder for lawmakers to get re-elected at the same time Clinton's ethics reforms make it harder to find work if they're not re-elected.
Oh, please!
The fact is that Congress has, for years, found excuse after excuse to buck campaign-finance reform. Democrats (and some Republicans) could get high-minded and pass reform legislation last year - because they were secure in the knowledge that then-President Bush would veto the bill.
But - gulp! - suddenly there's a president who's pledged to sign campaign-reform legislation. That might end the endless money-chase by incumbents, and break up their special-interest clubs. They're "scared for their political lives," one House member told The Washington Post.
Sorry, but the public is not forgetting that many lawmakers used this issue last year to tout their commitment to "change" in Washington. These rationalizations for stalling take the cake. It's iced with cynicism and impossible to swallow.