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One issue that has dogged American politics of late, and one certain to appear in this session of Congress, is campaign finance reform.
It won't be the first time, and even when such efforts
are successful, at best they renew your faith in American
ingenuity: As soon as a campaign-finance law appears on
the books, clever Americans find a way to prove that
there's really no controlling legal authority
in
such matters.
So before we ponder any specifics, maybe the real
question Do we need campaign-finance reform?
Here's the situation. I'll use my own congressman, Scott McInnis of Grand Junction, as an example.
In the two years of the 2000 election cycle, he accumulated a campaign fund of about $1.2 million.
Granted, Colorado's Third District is not a cheap place to campaign. It is the largest congressional district in the nation that isn't a whole state like Wyoming, Montana or Alaska. The district is a big empty, larger than the state of Florida, stretching across the entire Western Slope, along with Pueblo, the San Luis Valley and central Colorado.
That means a lot of travel during campaign seasons, and the only media that serve the entire district are Denver media that serve the entire state -- which means that about 85 percent of your ad dollar goes to put your message in front of people who couldn't vote for you even if they wanted to.
So, it costs to make yourself known out here in the Third District.
But consider the $1.2 million raised in two years, or 104 weeks. Divide those 104 weeks into $1.2 million and you get $11,538.46 a week, or $1,648.35 a day, seven days a week.
In other words, my congressman felt a need to raise nearly $1,650 every time he got up in the morning.
Now I don't know about you, but I can remember a lot of months that I had trouble hustling $1,650. I can only imagine how hard it would be to raise that much money every day.
Obviously, it can be done. But it must take a lot of time -- attending fund-raising dinners and receptions, talking to the distributors of PAC funds, comforting and cajoling the kind of people who can easily write a $1,000 check for each election.
Congressmen don't get any more hours in the day than the
rest of us do. When a congressman is spending those hours
with these people, he can't be spending time or energy on
the people's business.
McInnis isn't much different in this regard than the general run of Congress, where the average race in 2000 cost $1.7 million. I focus on him because he's our congressman.
And maybe he's a lot smarter and more organized than I am. I know that if I felt some need to raise $1,650 a day, including Saturdays and Sundays and holidays, that's all I'd be doing. I wouldn't have time to study legislation, attend hearings, compromise with my colleagues, respond to constituents, or perform any of the other legislative duties that the textbooks tell us that congressmen are supposed perform. I'd be finding rich people and listening to them and telling them whatever they wanted to hear, so that I could get that $1,650 a day.
Think of hundreds of congressmen spending the majority
of their waking hours this way, and the word
plutocracy
somehow comes to mind.
That's why I'd like to see some campaign-finance reform -- I'd like our senators and representatives to have time to do something besides raise money.
This brings up another question -- why do they need to raise money? So they can buy advertising. And why do they need to buy so much advertising?
That's a question that we media jackals might ponder. If we covered elections in a thorough and fair way, would candidates still feel as though they needed to buy a lot of space and time in order to present themselves and their views?
On the other hand, it does appear to be more profitable to give superficial coverage, then let the candidates buy plenty of advertising to get their message across. Real reporting costs money, so this approach saves on expenses while providing income from the money that the candidates were busy raising when they might otherwise have been tending to public business.
So the current system has the benefit of pleasing everyone who matters. The wealthy like it because it insures that officeholders will spend a great deal of time currying their favor, rather than tending to the complaints of the rabble. Incumbents like it because they naturally like any system that allows them to gain office. And it's a profitable operation for the major media.
Thus it's unlikely to be changed in any meaningful way,
no matter what Congress does about soft money
this
year. But I can't help but wish for something different --
either for some reform, or for the ability to dash off
those $1,000 checks so that I could be part of the American
Way.
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