So would a few felony convictions for money laundering or espionage. The question is whether all this scandal news can blow the lid off the whole Washington cesspool and bring real change. The answer is: only if voters go fax crazy for a full investigation of money and politics, in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott will try to prevent it. He recently told high rollers at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., that $100,000 contributions to politicians are “the American way.” Now Lott is trying to force COP Sen. Fred Thompson to limit his probe to allegations of law-breaking, which in practical terms means exempting Congress. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt agrees.
That is pathetic. Anyone paying any attention knows that the most enduring and corrosive scandal is what’s perfectly legal–contributors brazenly greasing politicians with hundreds of thousands, even millions, in “soft money” (a gaping loophole whereby the money technically goes to a political party before it gets to a candidate). Fred Wertheimer, the former chief of Common Cause, says that, even adjusting for inflation, there was more money flowing through the system in 1996 than in 1972, the year Watergate bagmen ran wild. The only way to kick-start reform is a series of big, splashy hearings by Fred Thompson, who is a big, splashy guy. But as Thompson knows, exempting Congress makes it much easier to write off the investigation of the Clinton White House as just another partisan witch hunt.
Republicans are willing to live with that because they can’t bear to turn over the rock on Capitol Hill. If they did, they might find greater abuse there than at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Here’s the breakdown: recent presidents have sold access, whether to Ronald Reagan’s “Eagles” or George Bush’s “Team 100.” This president and his millionaire bunkmates are simply playing a more grand and tawdry version of the same access game. We’ll soon learn whether Clinton also committed the far more grave offense of selling influence-in other words, whether any of the money sloshing around actually caused a change in policy involving, say, China.
In Congress’s case, we already know the answer. For years, members have routinely sold both access and influence. Sometimes it’s subtle: a member compensated at campaign time for voting the way he would have voted anyway. At other times, especially when it comes to voting on corporate-tax breaks or rules governing a big industry like telecommunications, the system amounts to legalized bribery. This is not exactly a state secret, but it’s considered bad taste in Washington to admit it.
To the chagrin of his COP colleagues, Sen. John McCain is telling the truth about how corrupt the system has become, and how members will do anything to maintain their grip on their seats. “They don’t want Thompson into the congressional stuff,” he says. “It’s one of the most cynical things I’ve ever seen.” McCain’s best argument for an independent counsel to investigate Clintonites for illegal activities is that it would free Thompson to go after the larger systemic scandal. Clinton and Thompson support the reform bill McCain is sponsoring with Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold, which would ban soft money and limit PACs; Lott and most of the rest of the Republicans oppose it.
The red herring of choice on the Washington menu is that campaign-finance reform requires a constitutional amendment. It doesn’t. True, in 1976 the Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo, said it was unconstitutional to limit how much a rich candidate could spend on his own campaign. But the court said nothing about limits on what others could contribute; indeed, we have such limits now. A recent decision in a Colorado case makes it harder to clamp down on soft money, but not impossible. The whole constitutional argument is a handy excuse for inaction for members like Gephardt and Sen. Arlen Specter, who don’t want to change the system. And real reformers should drop the constitutional case; it’s a distraction.
Money in politics is like water running downhill: it will always find its way, even with a constitutional amendment. The real issue is whether we want to slow the water down by banning soft money, or let it continue cascading through the process. In the short run, Democrats, especially Clinton, should try to reclaim some moral high ground by pledging a moratorium on soft money fund raising and challenging the Republicans to do the same. Yes, unilateral disarmament. Combined with explosive Thompson committee hearings, it just might prick the nation’s conscience and move the issue beyond goo-goo elites. Already, as Feingold notes, it will be hard for members of Congress to return home in 1998 and say they did absolutely nothing to dean up politics. Now that Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom has been despoiled, maybe his spirit can be stirred.
