How Not to Pick a U.S. Senator

Adaptability, the human species’ greatest biological strength, also is the source of some of our most pernicious failings, for it too often allows us to accommodate what should not be tolerated.

A striking case in point is the dominant influence money has come to exert on this nation’s electoral politics. Whatever we may say we desire of our leaders, the system by which we choose them insists that they be not statesmen or philosophers or law-givers, but financiers.

Take, for example, the situation with California’s two U.S. Senate seats. When he takes office, Gov.-elect Pete Wilson will appoint his own successor to the Senate. During the campaign, Wilson said he would seek someone “as nearly like myself as possible.” That is to say, a Republican who is pro-choice, pro-death penalty, opposed to offshore drilling and fiscally conservative--a man or woman of the reticent, rather than raving, right.

Wednesday, however, GOP insiders told The Times that the single most important criterion for appointment probably would be the ability to raise $6 million or $7 million over the next two years and, perhaps, $20 million over the next four years. That is because the appointee will have to run in a confirmation race in 1992 and again in the 1994 general election.

Meanwhile, California’s senior senator, Democrat Alan Cranston, announced Thursday that he is ill and will not seek another term. It is sad that Cranston’s distinguished career should end in the shadow of personal misfortune; it is absolutely tragic that it ends in the shadow of disgrace. Cranston is one of five senators alleged to have intervened with federal regulators on behalf of Charles H. Keating Jr., former head of Lincoln Savings. The accused swindler contributed $850,000 to political groups controlled by Cranston. As a result, Cranston seemed certain to lose his post as majority whip and probably his seat in the next election.

There is an antidote to all this: It is genuine campaign finance reform consisting of spending limits, caps on contributions and affordable public financing--the sort of program the city of Los Angeles already has adopted. The alternative is simply to adapt.