Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 11, 1994 TAG: 9402150262
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Isn't it time for election reforms to quiet the campaign-dollar din?
In last fall's House of Delegates' races, spending hit record highs. Major-party candidates raised and spent on average $57,642 - about $15,000 more than in 1991- in their quest for part-time jobs that pay $17,640 a year. (Many candidates spent well above the average; House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Vinton, for instance, shelled out $193,655.)
Republican George Allen raised $5.7 million to win the governor's job, which pays $110,000 a year. His Democratic opponent, Mary Sue Terry, raised $6.5 million to lose.
The above figures primarily reflect rising costs of campaigns in a media-intensive age. The troubling part is that, to finance their campaigns, candidates increasingly rely on megabuck contributions from groups and individuals with special interests in government actions.
Hence the widespread perception that Virginia's elected leaders are for sale, or at least for rent. Hence the polls showing public confidence in government and politics falling, falling, falling. Hence the need for meaningful changes in state campaign-finance laws.
In its current session, the Virginia Senate is considering a bill that would for the first time put limits on individual campaign contributions to statewide and legislative candidates. The limits, not ungenerous, would be $10,000 ($5,000 before the nomination; $5,000 after the nomination) for candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general; $4,000 for Senate candidates; and $2,000 for House candidates.
These are big amounts, but a clear improvement over the sky's-the-limit status quo now corrupting Virginia politics.
While the federal government and most other states cap the amounts that an individual or group can contribute to one candidate, Virginia law embraces a give-till-it-hurts standard. Since the '70s, some statewide candidates have bankrolled virtually their entire campaigns with six-figure gifts from a handful of big spenders. It may be fortunate for the politicians that the pockets they inhabit are so large. It isn't fortunate for the ethics or image of Virginia politics.
Contribution limits would help assure that a wealthy or organized few aren't dictating elected officials' agendas. (It also helps assure that candidates can't put hammerlocks on contributors.) The Senate measure would encourage candidates to seek a broader base of financing for campaigns - clearly in the interest of good government.
But not enough. To serve that interest more effectively, the assembly should also approve limited, voluntary public financing of political campaigns.
Resistance to the idea is practically set in stone at the legislature. Even some avid reformers suggest it's an impossible dream. But why?
Six states - Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, Michigan and Rhode Island - now provide for some degree of public financing. Most fund their systems with an income-tax voluntary-checkoff method similar to the $3 federal checkoff that makes public funds available for presidential campaigns. Most also appropriately link public funding to candidates' voluntary agreement to limit campaign spending.
Naysayers insist Virginia taxpayers will never go for a yearly checkoff, say, of $1 or $3 or even $5 for, of all people, politicians. But voluntary public financing for candidates, voluntary campaign-spending limits and mandated caps on contributions would restore a bit of sanity to politics now gone cash crazy.
Citizens want to turn up the volume of their own voices, against those of moneyed special interests. They also want to protect Virginia's vaunted reputation for clean government. Surely, to many taxpayers, that's worth a buck or two.
Saturday: Make redistricting nonpartisan.
by CNB