THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 49 lines
With their financial contributions to political candidates, contributors buy access to and a respectful hearing from officials elected with their help. The soaring cost of campaigning for federal and state offices especially deep-ens the dependency of candidates upon big contributors.
Record sums of money were spent by President Clinton and presidential-candidate Bob Dole and by congressional candidates in last fall's campaign. Corporations whose profit margins may be increased or decreased by government action are in the forefront of special interests seeking congressional and presidential favors. Thus, some observers say after every federal election, ``We have the best Congress that money can buy.''
Most voters seem to know - and be turned off - by the knowledge that Congress is responsive to well-heeled corporate interests. Millions see our constitutional democracy as a political system manipulated by heavy contributors and rigged against ordinary people. A news brief on the front page of the Dec. 26, 1996, Wall Street Journal confirmed this reality:
``DON'T CALL US: The GOP gets back at Democratic corporate givers. One obvious target for revenge is Seagram. The liquor company and top executives gave $1.2 million to Democrats over the past two years, nearly twice their GOP giving. When regulators threatened to fight plans for TV liquor ads, Seagram came running to us saying `save us, save us,' says a GOP congressional staffer; Republicans turned a cold shoulder.''
The Jan. 9 Wall Street Journal reported that the message is now being sent out systematically:
``Annoyed that big business has been hedging its bets by giving lots of money to the Democrats as well as to the Republicans, the GOP says the Business Roundtable, a group of 200 chief executives from the nation's biggest companies, is about to receive an ultimatum: `Stop donating so much to the Democrats and become more involved in partisan politics, or be denied access to Republicans in Congress.'''
The GOP's high-handedness, bordering on extortion, could well backfire. CEOs don't much like ultimatums from politicians beholden to them. And at a time when both President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich find themselves in the spotlight for campaign-finance irregularities, the blatant linking by the GOP of campaign giving and political considerations is the height of arrogance or stupidity - possibly both.
Many voters are likely to draw the obvious moral: It is time for real campaign-finance reform. Reform that would free politicians from dependency on big bucks to get elected and thus free them also to place the public interest before the interests of the richest and most powerful among us.