Funds Probe Gains Some Fairness

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) may one day graciously thank Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) for creating a little rebellion in the Senate GOP ranks.

It was Thompson who led a successful effort the other day to force Lott to broaden the Senate’s investigation of fund-raising activities to include “improper actions” as well as actual violations of the law.

Originally, the Senate GOP leadership envisioned a series of hearings that would focus almost exclusively on Democrats because most allegations of actual lawbreaking involve the Democratic National Committee and the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.

Not surprisingly, this tactic had the Democrats’ backs up. They argued that the hearings would amount to little more than a GOP witch hunt and vendetta against President Clinton and the Democrats while protecting their own party’s fund-raising from scrutiny.

Gradually, reality and common sense crept into the debate. It was possible, wasn’t it, that Democrats might stonewall the hearings by arguing endlessly that an act may be improper but not technically illegal. In their smugness over the Democrats’ excesses, Lott’s forces had painted themselves into something of a corner.

Thompson, who will chair the investigating committee, is experienced in this sort of thing and has a crafty political sense. He served under then-Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee as chief minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee and now is a potential presidential candidate in 2000.

There was a downside. By broadening the 1997 investigation, Thompson and other moderates risked exposing their own party to potential attack. For instance, Republicans indulge just as heavily as Democrats in the use of “soft money,” one of the greatest legal abuses of existing campaign fund-raising law.

On the other hand, Thompson and allies have given the investigation far more credibility by injecting a measure of fairness into the process. And they have opened the way for the committee to probe some of the Democrats’ most repugnant abuses, such as allowing fat cats to spend the night at the White House. That may be outrageous behavior, but it’s apparently not against any law.

Better yet, the broader investigation may even do what such investigations are supposed to do. It could possibly develop the groundwork and public support needed to achieve real campaign finance reform.