ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9607010017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
A TRIUMPH for freedom of speech? To hear Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tell it, the Senate's defeat this week of a campaign-finance reform bill was just that - ``a resounding victory for the First Amendment and for all Americans who want to participate in the democratic process.''
What a card that McConnell is. ``Saturday Night Live'' should book him. The vote was, in fact, a resounding victory for Washington's money game, and for those Americans who have a lot of money with which to "participate" in the process.
Corporations, unions and wealthy individuals acknowledge that they give big bucks to federal lawmakers, through political-action committees and political parties, to have ``a voice'' at the table when agendas are set, issues are discussed, bills are written and votes are cast. Robert Buker, senior vice president of United States Sugar Corp., said recently that $1,500 gets a donor ``not much'' but for $50,000 ``you'll get to whoever ... is making the decision, and you can talk to them.''
All he wants to do is talk? Call it $50,000 worth of access, Sen. McConnell, but don't try to tell us it's free speech. And maybe in Kentucky the average Joe can produce tens of thousands to have ``a voice'' like Buker's, but not in Virginia.
The campaign-finance reform bill, killed on Tuesday with a Senate filibuster - and with the shameful help of Sen. John Warner, R-Va. - was a bipartisan attempt to reduce the corruption wherein big-money special-interest contributors call the shots in Congress, and the voice of average citizens is drowned out.
The defeated measure, among other things, sought to restrict PAC contributions to federal candidates. It also would have ended unlimited ``soft money'' donations to political parties, a money-laundering scheme to circumvent the limits affecting direct contributions to candidates. A lamentable Supreme Court decision the day after the bill's defeat is likely to bring wider use of the soft-money loophole.
McConnell suggests, laughably, that the measure would have unfairly protected incumbents against challengers.
OK, so how does he explain the fact that, under the existing system, congressional incumbents got more than $59 million from PACs last year, compared to less than $4 million for challengers? The status quo is what protects incumbents - who, of course, get to vote on reform bills.
McConnell tells another good one: The public doesn't really care about campaign financing.
Oh? Then why in several states have voters overwhelmingly approved ballot proposals to diminish the influence of money? Why in 1994, in district after district, did they elect candidates who promised to get Congress out of servitude to special-interest contributors?
The public isn't stupid. It may be more interested in health-care reform than, say, the price of Buker's sugar, but it knows that checkbook politics have influenced the outcome of bills pertaining to both. And to virtually everything else that can affect our lives, from the minimum wage to environmental protection.
Incidentally, if McConnell feels so strongly about freedom of speech and the democratic process, why a filibuster to stop the reform bill from being openly debated and voted up or down on its merits?
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB