Saving the Clinton Presidency

David C. King

Washington Times
September 19, 1994

With the Haiti diversion receding, President Clinton turns again to the Congress and November's elections. Can we expect more gun boat diplomacy, this time with Capitol Hill surrounded? Probably so, but which campaign issues will rally the troops?

Not health care. Universal coverage is dead, and President Clinton's other orphans are in a deep coma.

Not the crime bill. Americans still associate "law and order" with Republicans. Besides, this battle over, the White House needs a new focus.

Not welfare reform. Thought it could have been a clear win with Congress and voters, "remaking welfare as we know it," has amounted to nothing. President Clinton delayed welfare reform for the North American Free Trade Agreement, then again for health care. Now it is too late.

Campaign finance reform is the answer. It is substantive. It is wildly popular among voters. And it can be done in short order. President Clinton should push reforms -- now -- for four reasons.

First, it is the right thing to do if the president is sincere about cleansing political cynicism. Americans are cynical because their votes mean little when their only choices are either entrenched incumbents or no-name challengers. Americans are cynical because they no longer imagine themselves running for -- and winning -- public office. Thanks to today's campaign finance system, Washington lawmakers are more likely to come from the upper-crust (1 in 6 are millionaires, after all) than at any time since the 1820s.

Second, campaign finance reform will increase electoral competitiveness, quieting calls for term limits. PAC limits will help weaken the link -- sometimes only imaginary -- between big money and big politics. And public resources for campaigns will help draw a new generation of politicians into office. While Republicans may instinctively say "no" to public resources, every -- and I mean every -- scholarly study shows that challengers (mainly Republicans) will benefit from the proposals lately debated in Washington.

Third, polls show overwhelming support for campaign finance reform -- though Americans differ on the details. This issue cuts across party lines, and that is something President Clinton (winner of just 43% of the vote in 1993) needs to do many times before his next campaign.

Fourth, fair or not, there is a scent of scandal around President Clinton's use of unsecured personal loans for supplementing his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. Fair or not, two of his cabinet officers have been investigated for various and sundry financial misdeeds. Fair or not, President Clinton's recent embrace of former Congressman Tony Coelho reminds many of "honest graft" on Capitol Hill. Shepherding campaign finance reform will go along way toward helping November's voters forget these real -- and imagined -- transgressions.

In 1890 House Speaker Thomas B. (Czar) Reed responded to complaints that he neglected public opinion. "Democracy," he said, "stops at the door of the U.S. Congress." As a student of the Congress, I know this is not true. On most issues, Congress has been sensitive (sometimes too sensitive) to our demands. Not so with campaign finance reform, and House Democrats are chiefly to blame.

Two years ago, candidate Clinton -- an outsider looking in -- called for overhauling the way we pay for elections. Political action committees and wealthy individuals, he told us, have too much power. He was right. Work by political scientists Richard Hall and Frank Wayman, both of the University of Michigan, document the links between moneyed interests and how actively Members of Congress push interests on their committees.

Two years ago, a dozen states passed term limits, and 110 new members swept into the House of Representatives. More than half of those first termers signed pledges to rewrite our campaign finance laws.

What happened? Everything looked good a year ago when the Senate -- at Majority Leader George Mitchell's behest -- passed sweeping reforms. In November 1993, the House followed suit, thanks to House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt. For ten months now, all we have heard is silence.

Worried about the effects of reforms on incumbents (that is to say, Democrats), House Speaker Foley let the legislation founder. First he delayed naming conferees; then he refused to allow cuts in individual PAC contribution limits -- knowing this would kill the bill. The American public wants campaign finance reform. The Senate wants it. So does a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. Speaker Foley, however, seems content passing another bill (regulating lobbyists, not members of Congress) and pretending to have cleaned up the system.