Campaign Giving as Freedom Tax

The ceaseless revelations of who spent how many nights in the Lincoln Bedroom, who got a president’s-class seat on Air Force One and who received an arm-twisting telephone call from Vice President Al Gore really infuriate me.

I am first-generation American of Pakistani origin, an MIT nuclear physicist turned hedge fund manager overseeing $2.7 billion in global investments, a die-hard defender of our Constitution, a Muslim by faith, and, for the past four years, a tireless worker in an effort to strengthen our democracy by creating a legitimate role and voice for 6 million American Muslims.

Now, the efforts of law-abiding ethnic Americans have been overshadowed by the clearly unethical, perhaps illegal acts of a few “loose cannons” who were more concerned with their own pomposity and gain than with preserving democracy. The questions posed by the political donor scandal, while serious enough for the president and his fund-raisers, also raise genuine concerns about America’s ability to renew itself with the fresh ideas of emerging immigrant communities. We must not let the actions of a few rogues alter the ability and inalienable right of Americans, particularly new immigrants, to have their voices heard in shaping the nation’s agenda.

America’s failure to cope with the rising tide of Islam is a case in point. Islam is the fastest growing geopolitical force in the world today and a religion that U.S. foreign policy is geared to contain rather than engage.

Not every Pakistani is a BCCI insider, not every Palestinian is a Hamas terrorist and not every Iranian is a sword-swinging mullah. Yet, how can we expect these ethnic American communities to contribute to the protection of U.S. interests, here and abroad, if they are shunted aside in a political process that makes it impossible for anyone with a foreign name to be heard without an Ernst & Young audit beforehand.

At the risk of inviting much unwanted attention, I use my own political activities as an example. Since November 1993, I have given either personally or corporately, or raised through organized fund-raisers of up to 350 people contributing $25 per person, more than $525,000 for the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the president’s reelection campaign and candidates for the House and Senate. I have met the president and the first lady on a dozen occasions and was honored to host the vice president at my home in 1996. I have never stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom and I have never ridden on Air Force One, although I do proudly wear a presidential lapel pin given to me at the president’s birthday gala in August 1996 (I, too, am a Leo). Oh, and my foreign-sounding name invited an Ernst & Young audit of every contribution I’ve made.

Nevertheless, I am not ashamed to state that I have a political agenda. As any other American interested in the consequences of our policies, I wanted my president to know about me and my politics. I used the “face-time” I earned from being one of the party’s faithful to voice my concerns. The president never promised me anything but an opportunity to state my case. I never asked for anything more. He heard me out, even respecting views that strongly disagreed with his administration’s stance. Last time I checked, I was only practicing my rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.

So why bother giving money to the political process? One can think of it as a freedom tax. It permits one the right to present ideas at a level high enough in the food chain to be meaningful in policy development. I voiced concerns about the inability of U.S. decision-makers to fully comprehend the consequences of our containment policy in many parts of the Islamic world. I argued for the need to use our considerable economic powers to help the disaffected people of the Islamic world so they would not be as desperate to tear us down.

This is the great lesson of America, that through hard work and prosperity, all differences, whether economic, political, religious or philosophical, can be aired and worked out.

It is essential to the survival of our democracy and its ability to renew itself that we distinguish between petty influence peddling and the legitimate need to voice concerns to our leaders. Losing this freedom, earned through the efforts of legitimate political activities, would be a tragic consequence of John Huang’s appetite for power.

The president should ask for the appointment of an independent counsel so that he and the nation can move on. Congressional Republicans should match this sign of good faith by engaging in a bipartisan effort to legislate meaningful campaign finance reform.

Only then can we hope to keep our democracy “of the people, by the people and for the people” alive and healthy.