COLUMN: Coffee, danish and fundraising

From: Seth Lasser's, "For Mass Consumption," Fall '97 From: Seth Lasser's, "For Mass Consumption," Fall '97 For the past month, America has been deluged with reports of alleged misdoings by the President, the Vice President and members of their staffs in their efforts to raise campaign funds. President Bill Clinton has acquired the nickname "Concierge in Chief" amidst reports hundreds of large donors spent the night in the White House or joined the President for dinner, breakfast or coffee and a famous White House danish. Vice President Al Gore admitted to soliciting donations over the phone from his office -- he did so, he insists, not at the taxpayers' expense. Successful political campaigns cost extravagant amounts of money -- the Clinton and Bob Dole campaigns cost millions of dollars each. The average member of the House of Representatives spent close to $600,000 in the 1992 campaign and this figure has subsequently increased. While some of this money comes from public coffers, the majority is raised from private individuals, corporations and interest groups. The American political system is thus marred by the tenacious influence of money and the donors thereof -- Clinton and others were merely doing what every other incumbent does and has done to raise money, though we have heard more about his efforts than anyone since President Richard Nixon. Finding the Clinton Administration guilty or not guilty will not change the way business is done in American politics. It is obvious to observers of the political scene why donations coming primarily from wealthy individuals, corporations and groups go against the democratic ideals our nation is supposedly based upon. The reason is -- as we have seen time and time again -- donations bring access to politicians. While it is hard to imagine Clinton paying close attention to advice received from individuals over coffee and bagels, his decisions may be influenced in a more subtle manner. Will the President vote one way or another or demand certain changes in a bill because contributions may result? Imagine a situation in which many large donors supported one side of an issue and there were but few supporting the other. How could the President's decision be limited solely to the issue at hand? As former U.S. senator and long-term Presidential candidate Jerry Brown has said, "You take money from the richest and best-connected 1 percent to get elected and then pretend that this does not affect your judgement." Problems arise when society's economic disparity gets translated into the possibility of a disparity in political influence between Americans. Americans vote twice: once at the polls and once with their wallets. The Constitution mandates we are all able to cast one ballot -- otherwise one citizen could have more say in the workings of government than another. Due to the present system of campaign financing, our leaders can hear some voices much louder than others. This fundamental inequality has been embedded into the political system by laws attempting to solve the problem itself. These laws have thus far been ineffectual and may have exacerbated the problem. There are four major sources of money for campaigns under the current set of laws governing campaign finance. Individual contributions are limited to a thousand dollars -- when bundled, they are the bread and butter of campaign funding. Organizations, including PACs and businesses, are limited to $5,000 donations to candidates. The third way funds are raised is by so-called "soft-money" donations -- those made to the political parties instead of to individual candidates. These donations are not restricted to a given amount and countless donations of more than a hundred thousand dollars are made. Lastly, interest groups or close supporters of a candidate often set up committees whose work is ostensibly unconnected to the official election committees. The Nixon-era Committee to Re-elect the President, better known as CREEP, is the most famous example of this -- Nixon's intimate relations with its activities may not be the exception but in fact may be the rule. In the 1996 elections the nation's largest union, the AFL-CIO, spent millions in an attempt to return the Democrats to power in Congress. Funds raised and spent by these committees are not restricted by the current laws. When methods of raising campaign funds are considered as a whole, it becomes obvious why the current laws governing such practices do little to solve the problem of unequal influence on the political process. Individuals who want to contribute more than a thousand dollars to a campaign do so with ease despite laws that appear to be contrary. The failure to raise sufficient funds for an election campaign means the loss of the election. A candidate's ability to raise money is one of the most important measures of their chance at success. In this television era where soundbites reign supreme, America's politics has more to do with raising money than with solving societal problems, making government more effective or anything else we believe our politicians should be doing. Changing our nation's campaign finance laws will not be a panacea, changing government instantly into its perfect and ideal form. Yet it will go a long way towards ridding our political system of the negative influence donations bring. What form these changes will take will be discussed in two weeks.