ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603040082
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
THIRTEEN U.S. senators - a baker's dozen of mostly moderate Democrats and Republicans - have announced they will retire this year. That's the most ever in a single year. And while they have given various personal reasons why they're leaving, one common theme is disgust with the endless money chase for campaign dollars.
A sampling of what they've said:
* Too much time and effort of Congress members are ``consumed by fund-raising efforts. The ability to raise big money and buy saturation television ads [has] become the dominant theme of our political races.'' - Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.
* ``What has changed, perhaps, is the enormous amount of money in the political system. I am not one who thinks you are bought by that. But it is the energy that is drained away from people who are continually having to raise money.'' - Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan.
* ``A great many people visit the United States Senate, and they will see two or three of us on the floor debating some issue, and they get discouraged at that point, there are more senators on telephones trying to raise money than there are on the floor ... .'' - Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill.
* The current campaign-financing system ``is prostituting ideas and ideals. It is demeaning democracy and debasing debate.'' - Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo.
Meanwhile, outside of Washington, the disgust has become almost universal. Polls show that, by large majorities, Democrats, Republicans and independents believe the campaign-finance system has become so corrupted by special-interest money that it's a national scandal.
Presumably, this year's exodus from the Senate won't be reversed by campaign-finance-reform now wending its way through Congress. Perhaps, though, its passage would encourage efforts to spend less time in prostitution and more tending to the unfinished business of the American public.
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