States take the lead fighting big-money politics

Insight on the News, Feb 19, 1996 by Lisa Leiter

As Maine activist George Christie drove to the mill town of Skowhegan one January morning, he doubted the public's enthusiasm about campaign-finance reform. People march for more passionate issues such as abortion and civil rights, he told himself, but would they be exasperated enough about the campaign-financing system to sign a petition for state reforms?

A month earlier, in neighboring New Hampshire, Karen Hicks and a few members of New Hampshire Citizen Action attended a charity fund-raiser sponsored by conservative groups including the Christian Coalition and Concerned Women for America. Citizen Action members dressed as "fat cats" and distributed campaign-finance reform fliers masked as fake $500 bills. The cats would be kicked out, Hicks expected. She also questioned herself: Would conservatives support campaign-finance reform?

The public alarm may not have been sounded yet about contribution limits; political-action committees, or PACs; and public financing of elections.

But Christie and Hicks activists fed up with big-money campaigns and privileged access bought by special interests. "The game is such that the price of admission is something the average American can't pay," insists Hicks, whose group boasts 7,000 members. "We're starting to see a real ruling class. With the amount of money it takes to win, you have to be independently wealthy or have a lot of wealthy friends."

Some might say the movement defines liberal sour grapes: PAC money that used to flow to liberal Democratic politicians now lands in the laps of conservative Republican committee chairmen who long languished in the minority. But rather than a fight between the political left and right, it is one between politicians entrenched in the system and activists seeking access to public officials. So they're crossing political-party lines and lobbying for reform at home - hoping to pressure lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Just how angry are Americans about this issue? Christie's group, Maine Voters for Clean Elections, was elated when - in just 14 hours - 1,100 volunteers collected 65,000 signatures statewide supporting a campaign-finance reform proposal for the November ballot. Skowhegan residents eagerly fetched friends and family to sign Christie's papers. He ran out of petitions.

Why were people so zealous? As he put it: "People are more angry about it than we think. They hate the idea that anyone who isn't wealthy has to mortgage themselves to a whole list of special interests."

Hicks and her group unexpectedly left the charity event with 75 names from the gathering of 500 conservatives who usually oppose Citizen Action on environmental and health-care issues. If more of her volunteers had attended, she explains, they could have enlisted more people because "this is a grassroots issue that cuts across ideological and party lines." Now she's asking the Republican presidential candidates to talk about the issue while they stump New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire Democrat John Rauh, in the tradition of Florida's Democratic governor, Lawton Chiles, has limited contributions to his Senate campaign to $100 per person. Rauh, a millionaire who made his fortune from a plastic-film business in Cincinnati, says the limit also will apply to himself and refuses PAC money.

Rauh narrowly lost a Senate bid in 1992. "I want the special interests in the office but I want their wallets at home," he tells Insight. "The voice of the average American doesn't count. Those with wealth also happen to be the people controlling the political agenda."

Local legislative efforts are blossoming in other states. The North Carolina Alliance for Democracy, a coalition of 37 groups including the AFL-CIO and the League of Women Voters, brought proposals calling for full public funding of campaigns to a state election-law commission.

The commission, says Peter MacDowell of the alliance, never has presented a comprehensive reform plan. And the General Assembly "doesn't get it yet." A bill imposing spending limits passed the state Senate but stalled in the House. "We have got to do that very solid grassroots organizing to make sure they get it," he says. "Money rules. It's that simple. And the big, powerful lobbies are walking away with the store."

MacDowell's group says campaigns could be funded fully by closing $50 million in tax loopholes. The alliance also calls for full disclosure, contribution limits and stricter enforcement of the new laws. "If we're asking people to be accountable to the public, the public needs to own the campaigns," he says. MacDowell plans to form committees in legislative districts and launch a home page on the Internet's World Wide Web.

In November, a fair-election commission in Missouri recommended that the state adopt a full public-financing system for elections. A bill has been introduced in the state Legislature in the last two sessions and will be again in 1996, according to Ellen Miller, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. State activists in California also plan ballot initiatives for spending and contribution limits. Oregon, Montana and Missouri passed similar reforms in 1994.