The Money Fix Defeats a PAC With Ideals

In its heyday, the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee was as glamorous and idealistic as a political action committee could ever hope to be. Usually PACs are as boring as they are dangerous, destroying our democracy while pretending to be about the most mundane of activities. But the committee was always aglitter with a sense of noble purpose and style. Barbra Streisand sang, the stars were in the audience and would-be senators and presidents came to pay homage. It was the most fun stop on a bagman’s journey.

It was also among the least corrupting. Contributors to the committee were not asking for a tax loophole or toxic exemption for their industry but rather peace in the world, choice for women and a break for the poor. In recent years, the committee has attempted to counter the power of much more affluent PACs controlled by the likes of big tobacco and big Gingrich.

This is a perspective I happen to agree with, which is why I was disturbed by the news that the Hollywood committee has decided to go out of business at the peak of the organization’s power, stating: “We will no longer collaborate with a system that promotes the buying and selling of political office.”

To its credit, the committee has favored campaign finance reform throughout its 13-year existence and is the only PAC to ever publicly testify before Congress urging the abolition of PACs. But as the organization’s members came to recognize, such testimony, admirably motivated, was in the end hypocritical.

Their impressive success in raising campaign funds just added to the slop tossed into the trough at which politicians from both parties feed. “All politicians, even the good ones, have become addicted to this money, and we don’t want to be their pushers anymore,” was the way Lara Bergthold, former executive director of the organization, put it.

The money raised by progressive women in Hollywood could never compete with that offered up by the special interests. Also, the pool of politicians whom the committee could in good conscience support was shrinking out of sight. And some closest to the group, like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Paul Wellstone, refused to take money from any PAC.

According to Margery Tabankin, a longtime leader of the Hollywood committee, the final disillusioning blow came when Bill Clinton, for whom the committee had done so much to elect, signed the welfare bill.

Obviously, the poor aren’t very good at funding PACs to represent their interests. And not just the poor. As the Hollywood committee noted, the current system of campaign financing has led to “the continued alienation of the vast majority of Americans who believe that without money and the influence it purchases, their voices will never be heard, their needs never met.”

The public very much wants serious campaign finance reform but has little faith that politicians will deliver it, as confirmed by a recent New York Times/CBS poll. While 90% of those queried said they favor salvaging our politics from the grasp of moneyed special interests, fully 78% expect that it will never happen. After all, incumbents in Congress and the White House benefit most from this racket, so why would they vote to change it?

For all of the bipartisan interest once shown in the McCain/Feingold reform proposal in the Senate, only one other Republican senator has joined John McCain in support of the measure. While 26 Democratic senators back the proposal, the real test will be if they make this an issue of the highest priority. That is the least they can do, given the truly shameful performance of their president and his party organization in the last election.

The big lie in this debate, pushed by Mitch McConnell, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is that serious campaign reform represents an abridgment of free speech. The equation of money with speech is unfortunately also endorsed by an odd alliance that includes the national ACLU, NEA and the Christian Coalition, and in part by past decisions of the Supreme Court. But this is a form of speech enjoyed only by those who can afford to purchase that right. Of the $2 billion spent on political campaigns in 1996, an infinitesimal one-quarter of 1% came from contributions of $200 or less. Who are we kidding with this talk of free speech, which is granted only to those who can afford to buy the politicians of their choice?

With less than half of eligible voters participating in the last election, representative democracy is at risk. It is imperative that Congress act to end a system of campaign financing so rotten that it reeks.