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

DATE: THURSDAY, November 17, 1994                   TAG: 9411170085
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A22   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIME TO CLEAN UP THE MONEY GAME

POSTING ``Under New Management'' signs in Washington, Republican leaders have pledged to clean up Congress. They say they'll reform everything from congressional staffs and perks and pensions, to business regulation and laws that are too soft on criminals.

``We're going to transform the federal government,'' says House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich.

If the new Congress wants to pass the white-glove test, the newly majoritarian Republicans would do well by the country (not to mention their own party) if they first moved to reform the way congressional campaigns are financed - an issue on which Republicans often have been obstructionists.

Worthwhile as, say, revising the rules for bringing a bill out of committee may be, it's an arcane improvement compared with curtailing the corrupting influence of big money on financing campaigns. Selling representation in Washington to the highest bidders is easy for the public to see, understand - and, rightly, loathe.

The public isn't fooled by the standard insider defense: that no particular contribution buys a specific vote. Even assuming the absence of outright vote-buying (a big assumption), campaign money still can open a door, quiet an objection, subtly alter the language of an obscure paragraph in the tax code. Contributors, for whatever reason, apparently believe they're getting their money's worth.

Gingrich and Majority Leader-to-be Richard Armey announced this week the creation of a ``family-friendly committee'' to help Republicans restructure congressional schedules and ease hectic workloads, so members of the House may spend more time with their families. That's nice. But summoning sympathy for their plight is harder when congressmen themselves complain about the time they must spend hobnobbing with lobbyists and raising money for future elections.

Campaign spending for Senate and House races this year topped $500 million. In California, Republican challenger Michael Huffington put $27 million of his own money into his race, or nearly $8 for every vote he received.

Here in Virginia, Republican challenger Oliver North raised nearly $20 million in his race against Democrat Charles Robb. That amounts to more than $22 per vote received.

Both North and Huffington lost, which proves the edge doesn't always go to the bigger spender. But problematic candidates both, their dollars may well have helped buy them a major-party nomination, and deprived the party (and thus the public) of better nominees. And money usually wins, even if not every time.

With both Republican and Democratic leaders balking, the 103rd Congress killed campaign-finance reform that would have provided incentives for voluntary campaign-spending limits. The reform bill also would have imposed stricter limits on PAC and special-interest contributions, which flow overwhelmingly to incumbents and generally put challengers at a financial disadvantage.

The defeated package wasn't perfect. But it was a step in the right direction, a direction that voters repeatedly have said they want to go. The promise of campaign-finance reform without the delivery may be one reason for the voter anger so evident last week. Surely, the sense that congressmen are having lunch with lobbyists instead of listening to the public has fed the electorate's frustration.

By pushing campaign-finance reform, Gingrich, Armey & Co. could demonstrate, in a positive way, that there's more to the new management than new managers.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB