Countywide : New Group Decries Influence of PACs

Bill Strahan says he knows what’s wrong with American politics: “the tyrannical control of special-interest money.”

And he and some friends want to be the vanguard of change.

Strahan, a retired aerospace physicist, is a founder of Project Shame, a new, 75-member Orange County group that hopes to eventually have chapters nationwide pushing for the abolition of corporate political action committees, or PACs, that make donations to congressional campaigns.

The group includes members of Ross Perot’s and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.’s defunct presidential campaigns (which refused PAC donations), Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, Concerned Citizens of Leisure World, the Green Party and the Alliance for Survival, he said.

“Our congressmen don’t look out for the people, they look out for the special interests that make donations to their campaigns,” said Strahan, 56, of Brea.

“They know that if they don’t toe the line, the PACs will make their donations to their opponents. That’s quite a bit of coercive influence that the PACs hold.”

He offered as an example the collapse of the savings and loan industry and the ensuing bailout, which will cost taxpayers an estimated $130 billion.

He said the industry and its leaders gave some members of Congress numerous campaign contributions.

“I used to wonder how the savings and loan disaster--I call it robbery--could take place,” he said. “In Congress, we have 500 intelligent and capable people, and they were unable to prevent the savings and loans from going broke.

“I used to think the issue must be terribly complicated or too big, but the more I read, the more I realized this was all planned and that Congress was bought using campaign contributions.”

Lisa Bierer, a spokeswoman for Sen. John Seymour’s reelection campaign, said that the group is mistaken in thinking that campaign contributions buy power.

The legal maximum a PAC can give any candidate is $5,000, which is not enough to influence his or her votes, she said.

“I don’t think there is any senator or congressman who would sell out his constituents for $5,000,” she said. “That’s one reason why the campaign laws were changed so that there was a limit.”

The group--which Strahan described as nonpartisan--was in front of the Orange Cinedome on Sunday night passing out flyers to movie-goers who had just seen the recently released “Bob Roberts.”

The Tim Robbins film depicts the fictional Pennsylvania political campaign of a charismatic but corrupt right-wing Senate candidate who is actually a front man for drug smugglers, among others.

“Myself and others of our group had decided to go see the movie because it deals with many of the things we are worried about,” Strahan said. “And since we were there, we decided to pass out our flyers.”

The flyer said: “Our democracy is being betrayed by a small group of wealthy individuals and special interest political action committees representing savings and loans, banking and financial institutions, plus the (American Medical Assn.), medical, hospital, pharmaceutical (and) health insurance PACs. In addition, energy, agribusiness, construction and transportation (PACs).”