For Once, a Fast and Easy Fix

To stop foreign money from coming into U.S. election campaigns, do away with “soft money” contributions. That is the simple lesson so far from the Senate Government Relations Committee’s investigation into 1996 election campaign fund-raising abuses.

Congress could do this in a wink. A bill could be drafted on the back of an envelope. Hearings need not last more than a day and there is no need for expert witnesses. No one knows more about campaign fund-raising than the 535 voting members of Congress. It’s so simple. Alas, congressional leaders are reluctant to change what serves them so well--a system that overwhelmingly favors incumbents.

But agitation for change is growing. And September is the time for action. Congress is back in Washington and the Senate committee’s hearings resume Thursday.

During their break, the Democratic and Republican parties continued to rake in soft money at a record pace. Common Cause says the two major parties collected more than $34 million in the first half of 1997, a 250% increase over the amount raised in the first half of 1993, another post-presidential-election year.

The list of big contributors--ranging up to $1 million each--is familiar: mostly big business and big labor, but especially big business. Of the total, Republicans collected $23 million and the Democrats $11 million. During the 1996 election cycle, soft money totaled more than $260 million--three times the amount raised and spent for 1992.

The concept of soft money emerged from the post-Watergate campaign reform laws. Individual contributions to candidates were sharply limited, but large contributions made to the political organizations for “party building” purposes such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives remained legal. The law prohibited such money from being used directly to support a candidate’s campaign.

But court rulings and lack of rigorous enforcement allowed exponential expansion of soft money to benefit the national presidential campaigns and to funnel funds into state committees for campaigns for Congress, state offices and legislative seats. Foreign money injected into the 1996 campaign illegally is a tiny fraction of the total, though virtually all of the scandal surrounding 1996 is tied to the illegal foreign contributions.

The choice is simple, says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 and former head of Common Cause. We either ban soft money and stop foreign contributions or we watch foreign influence prosper in American politics.

Soft money invites abuse and corruption. Congress should end it now.