DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709260035

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

INDEPENDENT COUNSEL NO PANACEA

In light of continuing revelations and under intense pressure, Attorney General Janet Reno is reassessing whether an independent counsel should be appointed to investigate campaign fund-raising practices in the 1996 presidential election. There may be no choice, but those who imagine this will solve anything have short memories.

Republicans argue that Reno, as an appointee of the president, can't be impartial. They express a lack of confidence in an ongoing Justice Department investigation, and several have called for Reno's impeachment if she refuses to turn the matter over to an independent counsel. There's more than a little partisan fun and games at work in the GOP's sound and fury.

But there's no question that campaign fund raising is a swamp. Each cycle, the shading of the law, the flouting of the law, the ignoring of the law escalates: 1992 was worse than 1988 and 1996 was worse than '92. It's also true, as Democrats argue, that many practices that are now legal are scandalous. The raising and misuse of millions in soft money tops the list.

Clearly, the America people have an interest in clean elections. They have a right to know how funds were raised in the 1996 elections, for Congress as well as the White House, and whether special interests - domestic or foreign - who wanted to influence government policy succeeded.

If laws were broken, the lawbreakers should be prosecuted. If legal acts corrupt candidates and sully the process, reforms should be enacted. The question is: How is that oversight and reform to be accomplished?

The public is at the mercy of those who benefit from the present system. The hearings being headed by Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., in the Senate and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., in the House may reveal some of the story, but probably not all.

The Justice Department probe has been less than fast moving and has just experienced a shake-up. Investigators appear to have missed facts known to the news media, and the GOP attacks it for possible partisan taint.

The Federal Election Commission, which is supposed to be the watchdog in such cases, is toothless by design. The present system, after all, is of the incumbents, by the incumbents and for the incumbents.

The last resort would appear to be an independent counsel, but the record of such probes doesn't inspire much confidence. Ken Starr's endless, $23 million look at Whitewater has been slow, inconclusive and tainted with its own instances of apparent partisanship. The same criticisms apply to Lawrence Walsh's interminable, overblown and ineffectual probe of Iran-Contra.

Too often, the open-ended independent-counsel process turns investigations into black holes: Money goes in, but no light comes out. And the time consumed is astronomical. An independent counsel's report might give a fuller view of the events of 1996 but might not be complete until after the election of 2000. Action is needed a lot sooner than that.

If laws were broken, the best hope for prosecution probably remains the Justice Department. The best hope for shedding light on the process with an eye to timely, meaningful reform is unquestionably the Thompson committee. The senator seems to be prepared to expose Dole campaign and congressional atrocities to the same scrutiny as the malefactions of the White House. If he stays the course, public disgust may actually force changes in how candidates raise money and seek office.

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