In Addition to Spark, Huffington Brings Attention to ‘Legalized Bribery’

Sacramento--Call her a pest, a pain, a self-promoter.

Point out she has absolutely no chance of being elected governor Oct. 7.

“Right,” she agrees.

But Arianna Huffington’s candidacy has plenty of redeeming value.

Start with the fact she’s entertaining. The syndicated columnist and author of nine books has added spark and spice to the debates, holding the front-runners’ feet to the fire when moderators have refused. She doesn’t pull punches and makes watching worthwhile.

Huffington, 53, may be annoying, but she’s articulate.

Most important, she’s articulating and accentuating an issue most candidates don’t dare touch: the corrupting influence of California’s political contribution system and the need for public financing of campaigns.

Viewers and party partisans may wince when she accuses another candidate -- Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, for example -- of “legalized bribery” for accepting barrels of money from special interests, like Indian casinos. But that’s the most honest, cut-the-baloney description of it.

You’ve got to be very naive not to recognize the relationship between special interest donations and a governor’s bill signings and political appointments, or a legislator’s votes.

Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), the Legislature’s most senior member, put it this way recently in an essay titled “Dean’s Reflections:”

“The dependency of contemporary campaigns on massive fund-raising has utterly distorted the political process, pulling candidates away from their mass base to the special interests....

“That money does not always come free, without expectation and/or obligation.... It is more and more the special interests, rather than the public interest, that is driving the course of legislation -- amounting increasingly to a government of the dollars, for the dollars and by the dollars.”

Vasconcellos is drafting a soup-to-nuts constitutional amendment to reform government and politics. He’ll include public financing of campaigns. Unless voters change the system, he says, it doesn’t matter much whom they elect.

Huffington, running as an independent, last week filed a ballot initiative to create a voluntary public financing system and to significantly tighten restrictions on private donations.

“When you’re wondering why we don’t have common sense policies,” she says, “follow the money.”

Of course, following the money also leads to another troubling problem: the increasing difficulty for anybody but the very rich to run for high office.

It’s not a coincidence that the candidates who get tagged as “sleazy” -- Gov. Gray Davis, Bustamante -- tend to be politicians of relatively modest means who must grub for bucks among the special interests. The super rich -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Simon Jr., Peter V. Ueberroth -- can keep their hands clean by spending their own millions.

Schwarzenegger is hypocritical, however. He writes his own seven-figure checks while also reaching into the pockets of developers and business execs, denying that they’re “special interests.” In a convoluted explanation, the actor tries to distinguish between special interests like Indian casinos and labor unions that negotiate with a governor, and powerful interests like builders and CEOs who seek regulatory and tax break bills from a governor.

“A distinction without a difference,” notes Huffington.

Anyway, have we reached the point where we’re satisfied with a system that allows only hat-in-hand panderers and the mega-rich to run for office?

Huffington’s ex-husband, Michael Huffington, spent his own millions to get elected to Congress in Santa Barbara, then forked out $30 million to nearly win a U.S. Senate seat in 1994. Arianna Huffington then was a Gingrich Republican.

“A lot of my populist ideas were forged in the crucible of the ’94 campaign,” she says. “I saw the difference money made in determining who was a viable candidate.”

Huffington’s plan -- modeled after a successful “clean money” system adopted by voters in conservative Arizona -- would provide $6 million in public funds for a gubernatorial candidate in a primary and another $10 million in the fall, if the contenders agreed to these spending limits. By comparison, Davis spent $70 million-plus getting reelected last year.

Candidates could reject the money and limits, but caps on private donations would be lowered to $2,000, from the current $21,200.

There’d be much smaller public allotments and spending limits for legislative races -- $300,000 for a fall Senate race, for example.

The system would be financed by a new tax on oil production. Just watch that special interest go to work on this idea.

There’s nothing anybody -- except the Supreme Court -- can do about rich people spending their own money to get elected.

But the rest of us can make a solid investment by buying the other candidates our- selves while making a more level playing field. And thank you, Arianna, for pestering people about it.