Beyond Excess

Commentary: With voters numb and politicians more brazen than ever, campaign finance has entered the Gilded Age

By Paul Taylor

September/October 2000 Issue

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A rumpled Wall Street mogul named Jon Corzine made political history of a sort in June by plunking down a record $34 million of his own fortune to win the Democratic primary for the US Senate in New Jersey. Corzine's investment worked out to an astonishing $141 per vote. By contrast, Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1996 at the bargain rate of $2 per vote. What's impressive is not only that Corzine spent so much, but that he won anyway. That's more than Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, Al Checchi, or Michael Hufngton can say for themselves: During the 1990s, they took turns testing the market for wealthy businessmen eager to buy their way into ofce. A couple of hundred million dollars later, they still hadn't found one.

How did Corzine break the gazillionaire's curse? It's not that money wasn't an issue in the campaign. Former Governor Jim Florio fulminated daily against his rival's "obscene" spending, and reporters and editorial writers were obsessed with the subject. The electorate, however, was not. Part of the explanation for Corzine's landslide was local. New Jerseyans still haven't forgiven Florio for pushing through a state tax increase a decade ago. But something larger was also at work. So much big money has been flooding into Campaign 2000 -- in New Jersey and around the nation -- that voters have become numb to the spectacle. And as the public has turned more acquiescent, the politicians have grown bolder. On the campaign nance front it's as if all the brakes are off, all the laws have collapsed, and all semblance of self-restraint, stigma, and shame has vanished. We've moved into the let-'er-rip phase of the political money contagion.

Some snapshots from this age of excess:

In a pair of dueling fundraisers held on a single night in Washington, D.C., the Democratic and Republican parties take in more than $40 million, a record. A campaign for a seat on the state Supreme Court in Ohio heads toward the $10 million mark, also a record. George W. Bush turns down public funding for his primary campaign in order to free himself to raise a record $100 million. Both parties routinely ignore the lines between hard money (contributions subject to limits) and soft money (unlimited contributions), using the latter to pay for campaign ads that are supposed to be nanced only by the former. Al Gore promises he won't be the rst presidential candidate in 2000 to allow his party to run soft-money political ads -- then proceeds to break the pledge. Hillary Clinton brazenly exploits the soft-money loophole. So does her US Senate opponent in New York. So do scores of other congressional candidates.

Not long ago, these practices would have been the stuff of scandal. Now they barely raise eyebrows. As recently as 1996, news of the Buddhist temple fundraiser, the Lincoln bedroom sleepovers, and the Chinese campaign contributions triggered weeks of headlines and months of Senate debate. But the public never stormed the ramparts over the issue. And the politicians noticed; they always notice when the dog doesn't bark. Unlike the Watergate inquiry of a generation ago, the 1997 campaign nance hearings chaired by Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) did not lead to a single new law.

To understand how much the mores have shifted, consider the tale of "Eggs With Lloyd." The year was 1987 and Senator Lloyd Bentsen was the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Bentsen had just invited 200 lobbyists and political action committee (PAC) directors to become members of his Chairman's Club. It was a straightforward money-for-access proposition. In return for contributing $10,000 to the Texas Democrat's re-election campaign, lobbyists would be invited to have breakfast with Bentsen once a month.

When the Washington Post got hold of the story and put it on page one, Bentsen knew he'd run afoul of the unwritten rules of his craft. "I'm not known to make many mistakes," he said in a statement, "but when I do it's a doozy, and in forming that breakfast club I really blew it. I didn't anticipate the perception of it. The last thing I want is anything that would reflect upon my integrity. The club will be disbanded today. The contributions to the campaign will be refunded to the contributors."

Can anyone imagine a politician reacting that way in 2000? In today's Washington, remorse is for suckers, the appearance of impropriety is a relic, and breakfast clubs have become an institution.

Except that it's not just breakfast anymore. The two major parties have created a veritable smorgasbord of meal plans and donor programs. For $25,000, contributors to the National Republican Congressional Committee can dine monthly with the Speaker of the House and the chairs of key congressional committees. The Democratic National Committee has created a Jefferson Trust program that entitles $100,000 donors to weekend retreats with party leaders, dinner with the president or vice president, regular briengs, and daily faxes.

This summer's national party conventions (dubbed "the Super Bowl of sucking up and shaking down" by the Washington Post) offered still more baubles for big shots. Democrats were better positioned to pamper their heavy hitters because they had the good sense to convene in the more celebrity-laden city, Los Angeles: Among the planned party favors were autographed basketballs at a reception hosted by Earvin "Magic" Johnson.

Meanwhile, at the GOP convention in Philadelphia, corporations with interests before the House Commerce Committee helped underwrite a fundraising shoot-out between two erce rivals for the committee chairmanship: Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin of Louisiana commissioned a Mardi Gras-style parade, while Rep. Michael Oxley of Ohio hired Dick Clark to emcee a dance at the studio where "American Bandstand" originated four decades ago.

Then there's the proliferation of favorite congressional charities -- like the recently launched Trent Lott Leadership Institute at the University of Mississippi. Last year MCI WorldCom and Lockheed Martin were thoughtful enough to donate $1 million each to the institute, even as their Washington representatives were busy lobbying Congress over Lockheed's proposed purchase of a satellite rm. The Senate majority leader must have been very gratied.

What accounts for all the excesses? You can pick your favorite proximate cause, from unparalleled boom-time profligacy to unprincipled leadership. But there is one direct cause: The regulatory system enacted after the Watergate scandal has collapsed. Those laws rested on two pillars -- contribution limits and disclosure requirements. Over the past quarter century, both pillars have been toppled, loophole by loophole.

Campaign nance laws are no different from any other laws. Once someone breaks them and gets away with it, lots of people will do the same. And pretty soon breaking the law is no longer considered scandalous. It's standard operating procedure.

To be sure, history moves in cycles, and each season of recklessness is followed by a time of restraint. Eventually the politicians will get around to enacting some legislative xes. The only question is when, and after how many scandals and false starts.

From the perspective of would-be reformers, the most hopeful development of 2000 has been Senator John McCain's campaign nance bill. Fortified by a handful of primary wins, McCain was able to overcome the resistance of Lott and other GOP leaders to push through the first reform measure in 21 years. The bad news is that the bill was a Band-Aid: It merely forced so-called stealth PACs -- organizations that exploit Section 527 of the tax code to pay for political ads -- to disclose their donors. Closing this loophole, as McCain was the first to acknowledge, will do nothing to stem the flow of soft money into political parties and issue groups.

What's more, even as the opponents of reform were staging a tactical retreat on the matter of stealth PACs, they were celebrating victory with the Senate's confirmation of Bradley Smith as the newest member of the Federal Election Commission. Smith is a professor of law at Capital University in Ohio who has made his reputation attacking the post-Watergate campaign finance laws. During a party at the libertarian Cato Institute to celebrate his swearing-in, Smith told a reporter: "My central issue is, we've got to let people participate in politics. And not just the little guy. It's the big guy too."

That's not a bad anthem for our Gilded Age, and it would also make a pretty decent bumper sticker for Jon Corzine. The former Goldman Sachs chairman still has an election to win in November, but the Republican contender, Rep. Bob Franks, is neither wealthy nor well known. That leaves the GOP with a game plan best summarized by a placard held aloft during a Florio rally in June: "Make him spend it all." For the record, Corzine's net worth is reported to be in excess of $400 million.

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