In Common: keeping up the pressure for reform

Common Cause Magazine, Summer, 1994 by Jackie Howell

IN MAY CC LAUNCHED its 90 Day Countdown Campaign, a grassroots lobbying effort designed to ensure passage, before Congress adjourns for the year, of three vital reform and government accountability issues: campaign finance reform, lobbying disclosure and gift reform, and the independent counsel statute.

In June the 90 Day Countdown Campaign tallied its first victory, passage of the independent counsel statute. The victory followed nearly two years of efforts to reestablish the government accountability reform that Congress had allowed to die in December 1992. A key post-Watergate reform, the law was created to ensure that there would be an independent investigation of allegations against high-level executive branch officials who could not be investigated credibly by the attorney general.

As the congressional session nears an end, CC has intensified its efforts to press Congress to enact campaign finance reform and lobby disclosure and gift reform.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

Although the Senate passed a campaign finance bill June 1993 and the House followed with its own bill in November 1993, Congress had yet to agree on a final campaign finance reform package at press time.

President Clinton, who pledged during his 1992 campaign and at the outset of his administration to make campaign finance reform a priority, has failed to keep his pledge. At the same time House Democratic leaders have intensely resisted cutting the amount an individual PAC can contribute to a candidate and have opposed other important reforms necessary to get a strong bill and retain the support of key Senate Republicans, who are needed to break an expected filibuster.

There is no real justification for the refusal of House Democrats to reach a reasonable agreement to cut the individual PAC limit. Because of the aggregate PAC limit in the House-passed bill, which would cap the total PAC contributions a candidate could accept, the individual PAC limit House Democrats are opposing would actually have minimal effect.

The refusal of House Democrats to accept a reasonable agreement on the individual PAC limit will ultimately kill the reform effort this year. CC is pressing House Democratic leaders to end their opposition to cutting the individual PAC limit and to agree with Senate Democratic leaders to cut the limit in half.

On June 22, more than 100 CC members and other concerned citizens converged outside President Clinton's Dinner, a major Democratic fundraising event at the Washington Hilton. They protested President Clinton's inaction on the campaign finance reform issue. On June 27, CC members protested at another fundraiser hosted by President Clinton, this time outside the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. In 1992 CC protested at a similar dinner held by President Bush.

Carrying huge banners and signs, CC demonstrators urged President Clinton to meet the campaign commitment he made to clean up the campaign finance system in Washington. Earlier that day, CC had released a major study showing that President Clinton has become the principal beneficiary of the corrupt soft money system he pledged to change.

According to the CC study, President Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised $40.5 million in soft money contributions from corporations, labor unions, wealthy individuals and others during the 21-month period since President Clinton received the Democratic presidential nomination in July 1992. That amount is nearly twice the $21.4 million raised by President Bush and the Republicans during the same period.

One hundred contributors gave $100,000 or more in soft money to President Clinton and the Democrats, and the list of Clinton soft money donors included a number of fat cat "switch hitters" -- wealthy donors who had previously given $100,000 or more in soft money contributions to President Bush.

The "switch hitters" included agribusiness titan Dwayne Andreas, financier Carl Lindner, oil and entertainment mogul Marvin Davis, Arco chair Lodwrick Cook, and cosmetics maven Ronald Perelman.

The largest donors to the Democratic Party include Time Warner, which has contributed more than half a million dollars; and the National Education Association, the Shorenstein Company, software developers Peter and Eileen Norton and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, all givers of $300,000 or more.

President Clinton, The New York Times editorialized, "has yet to press hard for his proposals to clean up a campaign financing system that binds lawmakers to special interests. Indeed, the president has actively participated in, and his party has hugely profited from one of the system's worst features -- a loophole that allows the two parties to raise so-called 'soft money' in large chunks that evade present caps on direct giving to candidates."

CC also has intensified its grassroots activities in the House and Senate. CC activists and volunteers in Washington, D.C. have staged weekly lunch-time demonstrations in front of key office buildings on Capital Hill. Activists around the country are conducting similar demonstrations and flyer distributions in front of the local offices of key representatives.