Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 19, 1994 TAG: 9408060007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not to compare politics with gas, but please note what's happened to political-campaign costs in Virginia in roughly this same period:
In 1979, former Del. Ray Robrecht, R-Salem, spent a grand total of $11,284 to win a contested re-election bid. Last year, now-Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, spent about $80,655 to win the same seat. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, was spending $193,655 to hold his seat.
Statewide, candidates for the House of Delegates spent a record $7.5 million in 1993. The average per contested campaign was $57,642. In 1983, the House average was $17,000. That year, all General Assembly seats - House and Senate - were up for election, yet candidates spent less than half ($3.4 million) what was spent in 1993, a House-only election year.
In 1978, Republican John Warner and Democrat Andrew Miller spent a total of $2 million in their tight race for the U.S. Senate. In 1982, Republican Paul Trible and Democrat Richard Davis totaled $3.3 million in another close Senate race. This year, combined spending by four candidates in the Senate race will probably surpass $20 million.
Blame it on television, lament the candidates. To be sure, glitzy TV spots don't come cheap. Neither do lousy ones. In the 1993 gubernatorial race, Republican George Allen and Democrat Mary Sue Terry paid $25,000 and $31,000 respectively to place one ad each during ABC's Monday Night Football - and politicians get special reduced rates.
And while not so long ago it was unheard of for candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general to run TV ads, now most House of Delegates contenders, and even many contenders for local government office, run them routinely. This often entails the hiring of pricey "media consultants."
But don't blame it all on television. In Griffith's race last year, his $80,655 bought no TV spots; in '79, Robrecht's $11,284 did buy a few. Blame also ever-more sophisticated - read, expensive - political technology: polling, direct mail, Fax machines, phone-bank operations.
Rising campaign costs also reflect an increasingly competitive two-party system in Virginia - a good thing.
Not good, however, is campaign costs' soaring to such heights that only a challenger who is wealthy, or who is willing to sell his soul to special-interest campaign contributors, dare run. Public confidence in government is hardly firmed up when candidates spend as much as $200,000 to get a job that pays less than $18,000 a year.
Which is simply to remind the General Assembly that campaign-finance reform is still urgently needed in Virginia. It should include reasonable caps on political-action committee and individual contributions - now, the sky's the limit - and sound inducements for voluntary campaign-spending limits. Without them, Virginians may be looking 15 years from now at $20-million House of Delegates campaigns.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB