No Quick Pick-Me-Up For Finance Reform

By Ronald D. Elving

Campaign finance reform is moribund for the present, and it may take a draconian proposal such as a ban on televised political advertising to revive it.

It is hard to mourn when Congress kills another of its campaign finance bills, which are launched with lofty goals but soon deteriorate into tinkering. If true reform means running big campaigns on much less money, it will take a bold vision indeed to make a difference.

Some thought such a vision might be forming in the spring of 1995, when President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich shook hands in New Hampshire and promised a bipartisan compromise to overhaul campaign finance laws.

Instead, the campaign finance front in 1996 has produced victories only for the status quo.

The new election cycle got under way, and money was raised and spent in record amounts. Clinton snuffed any breath of opposition to his renomination by raising, in 1995, all the money he could legally spend in 1996.

By the same laws, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas together raised more than $45 million to run for the Republican presidential nomination. Other hopefuls sat back down.

After the "money primary" winnowed the field, late starter Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes Jr. rode in on $33 million, most of it his own. He forswore public financing, freeing himself from spending limits, which frustrated other candidates. One of them, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, likened this to one kid bringing a garden hose to a squirt gun fight.

Meanwhile, in the congressional contests, where there is no public financing, the newly empowered majority Republicans ran up huge dollar advantages and scared off many prospective Democratic challengers. Democratic recruiters made few bones about seeking candidates who could pay their own way.

The main bipartisan attempt at voluntary spending limits in the 104th Congress died in the Senate on June 25, when its sponsors fell six votes short of the 60 needed to shut off a filibuster.

The next day, the Supreme Court weighed in, ruling that limits on campaign outlays by political parties were unconstitutional, just like limits on candidates' spending their own money -- so long as the parties and candidates did not act in concert. Four justices indicated they would favor striking the limits even when parties and candidates do act in concert.

The one benefit of this season of unrelieved setbacks for campaign reform has been its tendency to sharpen one's focus.

The core problem is posed by television. On the presidential level, and increasingly in congressional contests, the cost of air time forces campaigns to revolve around money.

The ultimate antidote would be to ban paid political TV ads, just as tobacco ads have been banned for decades.

No one important has seriously suggested this, of course. It would be unfair to challengers trying to compete with well-known incumbents. It would violate candidates' First Amendment rights and require a constitutional amendment. It would cost broadcasters millions in revenue, even as it would aggrandize the "free media" influence of news organizations.

But many of these objections can be lodged against other ideas that are being discussed -- including some that would be far less likely to make a difference.

One high-minded group has asked the networks to give free time to presidential nominees. But this would offer little relief to candidates in primaries or in congressional races.

Retiring Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey has called for limiting outlays from any source -- including one's own pocket. But this too would hurt challengers, cost broadcasters money and require a constitutional amendment.

Alexander says he would end the $1,000 limit on individual contributions (and the $5,000 limit on political action committee donations) imposed in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal. This "off with the limits" approach appeals to those who think the unintended consequences of the post-Watergate reforms have overwhelmed the benefits. But lifting all limits would scarcely lessen the influence of money on the system.

The recent defeat in the Senate makes manifest the difficulty of enacting any overhaul in the face of objections from interest groups as diverse as the civil liberties lobby and the gun lobby, teachers' unions and the anti-abortion movement.

The only constituency for reform is the public, which is passive rather than active. Opinion poll numbers mean nothing until actuated in polling booths, and to bring public will to bear, it is necessary first to fire the public imagination.

That is why a successful overhaul would need to be radical, simple and compelling to the average voter.

Of course, voters would never want to be deprived of the chance to see political ads on television. Would they?

Copyright © 1996, Congressional Quarterly Inc. All rights reserved.

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