Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995 TAG: 9502280075
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To ease the task, the assembly left intact laws that impose no limits on the amounts that candidates can collect from wealthy individuals and political-action committees with special interests in legislative outcomes. That keeps it as simple as possible: There's little need to appeal to broad-based interests for support. Influence remains for sale.
Big-time contributors will have every reason to continue to expect legislative gratitude. After all, you get what you pay for, and in this case they're paying for big-time access to lawmakers and big-time favors that ordinary citizens don't get. (Or have those dropping megabucks into campaign coffers been wasting their money all this time?)
In truth, this year's proposed legislation to impose limits on campaign contributions was no great shakes of a reform bill. It offered no provisions for voluntary public financing of campaigns, imposed no limits on campaign spending, and left loopholes in campaign-finance disclosure big enough to drive a herd of campaign-cash cows through. By the eve of the session's adjournment, when it was killed by the House of Delegates, it had even been ``fixed'' to ensure it would not apply to this year's legislative elections.
Wouldn't want to do that - not when the House is on a roll.
Two years ago, Virginia House candidates collected and spent almost $7.5 million to win jobs paying less than $18,000 a year. The $7.5 million was an all-time high for House races, and represented a 450 percent increase in 10 years. This year, with elections for both the House and state Senate, there's no telling how high the spending may get. The sky is still the limit.
For all its omissions and flaws, the campaign-finance bill that was rejected would have introduced a degree of fiscal sanity into the political arena. Its modest limits on gifts to Virginia candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the legislature were at least a start on the road to real campaign-finance reform.
Without it, Virginia remains one of only 10 states that impose no limits whatsoever. Killing the concept for a third year in a row, members of the House of Delegates have again demonstrated that the breadth of opportunities for political corruption troubles them not nearly as much as the prospect of losing easy money. They want those big bucks to keep rolling in.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB