ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170032
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOFT MONEY is the latest means by which politicians seek huge campaign contributions from special interests, never mind the effect on the public's influence and confidence in the political process.
Soft money is also the best current example of why we need serious campaign-finance reform.
Under current law, the political parties are allowed to solicit gifts of any size from corporations, labor unions and individuals. The money is supposed to be used for "party-building activities" such as voter registration. In fact, both parties use it for ads selling their presidential candidates.
Most recently, Democrats have come under fire, and rightly so, for the murky circumstances surrounding contributions to the party - thence to advertising that supports Bill Clinton's re-election - from foreign sources. The most egregious case involves an Indonesian couple, Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, who until last winter lived in a working-class Washington suburb.
They are legal U.S. residents. He is a landscape architect, she a homemaker. They're now back in Indonesia. But, in the past year, they have written checks for more than $425,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Soraya Wiriadinata happens to be the daughter of a business partner of Mochtar Riady, an enormously wealthy Indonesia businessman. The DNC's vice chairman for national finance, John Huang, once worked for Riady's Lippo Group. Indeed, it turns out the Indonesian family has been friendly with Clinton since his Arkansas days.
Why these contributions? What does Riady want in return?
The DNC claims no wrongdoing. The gifts may well be legal. But that just points to the scandal of a system that would allow such giving.
Foreign campaign gifts either to candidates or to parties are outlawed. But both the Federal Elections Commission and disclosure requirements are absurdly weak. And the law is riddled with loopholes. A U.S. subsidiary of a foreign company can give unlimited amounts to a political party, for example. So can a foreign citizen if he, like Wiriadinata, is a legal resident.
More to the point, the whole cozy arrangement - not just the foreign sources - is an outrage. Most of the soft money coursing through the campaign today comes from U.S. labor unions and big businesses, each with its own agenda. And the ruse is entirely bipartisan. The GOP to date has raised more soft money than the Democrats.
Both Clinton and Bob Dole have taken public finances in return for agreeing to limit fund-raising and spending. Then they've turned around and used the political parties as straws with which to circumvent the limits and suck in tens of millions of dollars in special-interest money.
Then they wonder why they're held in such low regard.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB