House Democrats must act on reform now

Common Cause Magazine, Summer, 1994 by Fred Wertheimer

DURING THE 1992 campaigns, House Democratic leaders and most current House Democratic members made a public commitment to their constituents to clean up the campaign finance system in Washington in this Congress.

That public commitment has not been met and, with time now running out in this Congress, the enactment of meaningful campaign finance reform legislation is in serious jeopardy.

The principal reason that campaign finance reform legislation has stalled, after bills passed the House and Senate last year, is the refusal of House Democratic leaders to reach a reasonable agreement with Senate Democratic leaders to cut the amount of money a PAC can contribute to congressional candidates.

There is no real justification for the position taken by the House Democratic leaders. House Democrats have already voted for an aggregate limit on the total PAC money a candidate can receive. Because of the PAC cuts that would be achieved by this aggregate limit, adding a cut in the individual PAC limit to the bill would not have a significant impact on House members. But a failure to cut the individual PAC limit will ensure that the campaign finance reform legislation is killed in the Senate.

Cutting the individual PAC limit is a central issue for the seven Republican senators whose votes were critical to breaking a filibuster on the campaign finance reform bill last year and will be essential to breaking another expected filibuster on a final reform bill this year.

As the New York Times editorialized recently, the campaign finance reform effort "is stalled mainly because House Democrats insist on a very high, $10,000, limit on the amount of money a candidate may accept from a single political action committee. ... The $10,000 ceiling is not only wrong on the merits but is also a prescription for killing reform. It is almost certain to cost the support of seven swing Senate Republicans whose votes are essential."

And a recent Washington Post editorial pointed out that "if House Democrats insist on keeping the current $10,000 limit, they could dutifully claim to be the friends of reform while making it impossible for Senate Republicans to support a bill. Everybody could blame everybody else, and reform would die."

While cutting the individual PAC limit would have a limited impact, killing the campaign finance reform bill will have a major impact:

* It will kill the aggregate PAC limit, a limit that would result in major PAC cuts for a number of House members. For example, if the aggregate PAC limit in the House bill had been in effect for the '92 elections, the five top House Democratic leaders would have lost from 30 percent to 53 percent fo their total campaign receipts.

* It will kill the communication vouchers, which are particularly important to giving House challengers a fairer chance to compete.

* It will kill the provisions to shut down the corrupt soft money system, which is soaring totally out of control.

* It will kill various other important reforms contained in the Senate and House bills.

This is the third straight Congress where the House and Senate each passed campaign finance reform bills. Yet there is still no meaningful campaign finance reform legislation on the books. This failure to clean up the corrupt campaign finance reform system has contributed greatly to the dangerous levels of cynicism among Americans about their elected officials. According to a recent CNN poll, for example, a majority of Americans -- 51 percent -- believe that most members of Congress and most congressional leaders are corrupt. And when a Time magazine poll asked Americans whether Congress was "doing a good job of maintaining high ethical standards among its members," 70 percent said no. In 1992 House Democrats passed campaign finance reform legislation knowing that President Bush would veto it. Now there is no way for House Democrats to justify killing campaign finance reform when they know President Clinton will sign the legislation.

The commitment House Democrats -- and President Clinton -- made in 1992 to clean up the campaign finance system in this Congress was a commitment to the American people. If they fail to keep this commitment they will be breaking faith with the citizens of this country.

It is not too late for House Democrats to deliver on their promises. House Democratic leaders should agree to cut the individual PAC limit in half. And they should quickly agree with Senate leaders on a meaningful campaign finance reform bill and bring it to a vote.

It's time to end the game-playing.