DATE: Tuesday, July 8, 1997                 TAG: 9707080016
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   60 lines

SERIOUS OR A CIRCUS SOME LESSONS ARE ALREADY ABVIOUS. SOFT MONEY IS OUT OF CONTROL.

Hearings begin today into campaign fund-raising abuses in the presidential election of 1996. There's plenty to investigate, but it's questionable whether this is the way to do it.

Let's stipulate that campaign fund raising is an open scandal that worsens with every election. Huge amounts of money flow into campaigns with too little monitoring. It isn't farfetched to suppose that quid pro quos are involved.

In 1996, new records were set. Each party raised in the neighborhood of $200 million - some from illegal overseas sources. Soft money that is not supposed to be used to advance the fortunes of individual candidates was used for just that purpose.

This is well-known, so what's the purpose of these hearings? It isn't to prosecute the perpetrators, because Congress hasn't got the power to do that and risks impeding such a pursuit. Besides, many prominent figures will be unavailable.

Little Rock restaurateur and alleged Chinese bag man Charlie Trie is, appropriately, in China. John Huang, who apparently raised money for Clinton while remaining the tool of Indonesia's Lippo Group, has announced he'll plead the fifth.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed Sunday that witnesses be granted immunity because ``finding out what happened is far more important than sending people to jail.'' This was the rationale during the Iran-Contra hearings that later made successful prosecutions of lawbreakers impossible.

Getting at the truth might justify grants of immunity if it were going to lead to reform. But there's no evidence of that either. Both parties are enthusiastic participants in the present system, though they criticize it when details of its operation are revealed. And the truth being sought is limited.

For most of July, the hearings of a Republican Congress will concentrate on fund raising by the Clinton campaign. For a couple of days late in the month, minority Democrats will be permitted to question Republican fund-raisers. Yet illegal foreign money also flowed to the GOP and the abuse of soft money is a nonpartisan feature of modern campaigning. It is reasonable to worry that these hearings are a species of partisan theater.

Useful hearings would aim at drafting legislation to prevent a repetition. That's the usual justification for congressional hearings. And some lessons are already obvious. Soft money is out of control. There's far too much of it, and it is too loosely monitored. It is used for purposes not permitted by law, but there is no mechanism to prevent it.

The ability of foreign powers to contribute to campaigns undetected while seeking to influence policy is unimpeded by existing safeguards. Essentially, candidates are operating on the honor system. The Federal Election Commission doesn't get around to discovering wrongdoing until long after elections are over - if then. And the FEC is toothless when it comes to imposing punishments. Malefactors may have to give back some money. They never give back an election That's an invitation to bend or ignore the law.

If the hearings concentrate on what's wrong with the existing laws governing campaign money and how to fix them, they will deserve the respect of the electorate that's paying for them. If they degenerate into just another act in the endless political drama, like the fund raising they are ostensibly investigating, they will confirm citizens in their cynicism.

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