Hypocrisy.
It's all around us, but nowhere does it blossom so fully as in politics. The current battle in Congress over campaign finance reform is a perfect example.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a campaign finance reform bill. That's bad enough, but the way they did it was even worse. As best I can understand, House majority whip Tom DeLay has lived up to his name once again. Using a little-known parliamentary trick, House Republicans were able to vote on whether they would vote on the bill. Then, in an unheard-of move, they voted down the voting rules. So while in effect defeating the bill, they could both say that they voted on campaign finance reform and did not vote against it.
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), co-sponsor of the House bill, is no Jim Jeffords. He is not known for going against his party. Yet he's vowed to get it passed at all costs, including conspiring with Democrats and pro-reform Republicans to derail the Republican agenda, and revealing shady details of his colleagues' fund-raising. Shays has grown a backbone; it remains to be seen whether others follow suit.
President Bush, meanwhile, has been claiming for years that he is reform-minded and loves bipartisanship, yet he opposes campaign finance reform, a truly bipartisan bill. The Senate sponsors are Republican John McCain (the eternal thorn in Bush's side) and Democrat Russ Feingold. In the House, it's Shays and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.). The McCain-Feingold bill would ban soft money contributions from all sources. The version Bush supports would merely require labor unions to get members' permission before making contributions out of their dues. Yet he does not support similar measures for corporations or wealthy businessmen. The reason? Unions generally support Democrats, while corporations and wealthy individuals generally support Republicans.
Ironically, campaign finance reform became an issue in 1996, when Bill Clinton and Al Gore's Buddhist and Chinese connections came to light. While attacking Clinton and Gore, most Republicans refuse to do anything to solve the problem.
Some Republicans oppose campaign finance reform merely because they are crusty out-of-touch conservatives, like Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell. Others, like Bush, oppose it because they're trying to tilt the money balance even further toward the GOP. Because of the parties' respective constituencies, Republicans (upper class whites and big business) tend to raise more money than Democrats (blacks, most other minorities and the poor in general). Specifically, Republicans raised $691 million in 2000, while Democrats raised $513 million.
The Republicans have banks ($17 million), insurance companies ($27 million), HMOs ($27 million), pharmaceuticals ($18 million) and Big Oil ($26 million). The Democrats have lawyers ($75 million) and entertainment ($25 million). Each industry has its own reasons for supporting a particular party, and each party is a whore to several pimps.
All that cash is drowning out the lil' ol' single votes of regular people like you and me. If I called Trent Lott complaining about the poor treatment I got from my HMO, how much would he care in the face the millions of HMOs that have paid him and other Republicans to block reform? If my small business got screwed by a nuisance lawsuit, would Ronnie Shows sympathize, or look at the millions he and other Democrats got from trial lawyers to block tort reform, and do nothing?
But those who oppose campaign finance reform are bound to lose, and to pay for it at the voting booth. A Time magazine poll showed 77 percent of Americans in favor of tightening restrictions. This issue has been around for five years, and it's not going away. In the Senate, 12 Republicans joined 47 Democrats in passing McCain-Feingold. In the House, McCain said Speaker Dennis Hastert, under severe pressure, has promised a vote soon, and Shays-Meehan will likely pass. That would put Bush in an extraordinarily uncomfortable position, the best way out of which would be to sign it and maintain some degree of credibility.
The bottom line: money is the crack of politics, and it's time for our nations' leaders to go into rehab.
Copyright The Daily Mississippian
