Revolutionary Campaign Election
Reform Page
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Hobie seeks your suggestions on how we might
proceed to wrest back our government from the career politicians who think
so little of us, and so highly of themselves. A key role will be
played by the Internet which already provides many great resources and
respected campaign reform organizations. And while the revolutionary
reform we propose goes far beyond the banning of "soft" and foreign money
in American political campaigns, our fist step must be to thank and support
the heroes in the House and Senate who have worked for campaign election
reform in the past.
Campaign Finance Reform
As usual, Hobie has
been well ahead of the politicians and media and pointed out the unbelievable
abuses and critical need for campaign financing back in 1996 in his Platform
and in his 1997 Update.
Many of the following quotes come from an article by former Senator Dale
Bumpers, who retired from the Senate, and thus felt free to "tell it as
it is" in the NYTimes on January 3, 1999.
"Nothing illustrates what afflicts our democracy
so well as this: 94 percent of candidates who spend the most money
win. We have all come to reflexively calculate on every vote, significant
or insignificant, (1) what 30 second television spot our next opponent
can make of it, (2) the impact it could have on contributions, and (3)
what interest group it might inflame or please." Sen. D. Bumpers
"With most states having 'front-loaded' their
nominating primaries by moving them early 2000, we can expect full-scale
campaigns by the Presidential candidates in 1999. Thanks to President
Clinton's shameful legacy, we can expect widespread illicit fundraising
and spending by a number of these candidates. Absent quick Congressional
action on campaign finance reform, we are about to see our next President
chosen in a process that is corrupt to its core and likely to taint the
next president from the day he takes office. That's some way to start a
new millennium." F. Wertheimer NYTimes 11/30/98
"We are at a point where we are facing the
same abuses we had in Watergate, but the abuse is on a lot larger scale.
People are openly and flagrantly doing the same things people went to jail
for in Watergate." D. Simon, Pres. Common Cause
"This takes us back not just to the pre-Watergate
days of the early 1970's, but to the baron robber days of pre-1907.....
There really are no limits left." F. Wertheimer about the Federal
Election Commission's decision to overrule their counsel's recommendation
that both Dole and Clinton had to repay millions in soft money used to
by-pass spending limits.
Sunshine
"America needs just one campaign finance reform:
sunshine. All candidates at all levels should be requires to fully
disclose all contributions and spending. Disclosure should be complete,
timely standardized, extensively promulgated on the Web and analyzed by
the media." A. Leader NYTimes Letters 1/3/99
"C-SPAN started televising floor debate in
the House in 1979, and in the Senate in 1986. That openness has been
healthy, but at a price. A good two-minute speech can, and often
does, take a half-hour for a politician with a national television audience."
Former Sen. Dale Bumpers
Single Issue Politics
"In the 1970's national associations by the dozens were setting up shop
in Washington, right down to the beekeepers and mohair producers, and with
them came a new threat to the integrity of the legislative process:
'single issue politics.' These groups developed very harsh methods
of dealing with those who crossed them. Suddenly, every vote began
to have political consequences. Congress began to finesse the tough
issues and tended to straddle every fence it couldn't burrow under....
The Christian Coalition
claims to represent 13 percent of the electorate. There is little
reason to doubt it. Whatever the number, the group is powerful enough
to bring a filibuster on any matter it opposes. This is true to a
lesser extent of groups representing the elderly, educators, environmentalists
and others. It isn't that the groups don't have legitimate interests,
but they distort the process by wrangling over the smallest issues, leaving
Congress paralyzed, the public disgusted, and the outcome a crapshoot."
Sen. Dale Bumpers
Partisanship
"A senator periodically receives a record showing
the number of times, by percentage, that he or she has voted with each
of the other 99 senators. When I first came to the Senate [in 1975]
there were Democrats mixed in with Republicans and vise versa. Today,
except for procedural votes, or what are often called throwaways, it's
rare for more than two r three senators to cross party lines on a vote.
Nothing could more starkly demonstrate the fog of partisanship that has
enveloped the Senate." Sen. D. Bumpers
Negativism
"In the 1960 Presidential Election three-quarters
of the references to the candidates which could be characterized as positive
or negative were positive; in the last Presidential election, the proportion
shifted to sixty percent negative." T. Patterson.
30 Second Television Spots
"Television is the primary campaign vehicle,
If broadcasters were made to provide free time on the public airways for
office seekers, much of the campaign financing problem would dissolve."
R. July
"We give the broadcasters $70 billion worth
of a public asset -- additional channels -- for free and then squabble
over a few crumbs of air time that might be returned to the political process
that created it all. Five minutes of free time a night in the month
before election, as suggested by the Federal Communications Commission?
Shouldn't we be looking for something better here? S. Cohen in Letters,
NYTimes 1/3/99
"Democracy is threatened when the candidates
we elect and the laws we enact hinge on how much money is spent.
To claim that campaign spending is a legitimate exercise of free speech
is to deny the constitutional principal that each one of us counts.
A donor who gives $100,000 gets a lot more free speech than the assembly-line
worker who cares just as deeply about the issues but doesn't give because
he can't afford to...." Sen. Dale Bumpers
"Revolutionary reform is precisely what our
campaign finance needs. The fundamental problem is that there is
too much given by a tiny minority of very wealthy special interests.
In Arizona, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont clean-money systems are now
law -- systems in which candidates who have spent no private money and
accept spending limits receive full public financing. A revolution
indeed." E. Miller
"I can't stand most of the S.O.B.'s --
they're ideologues, they practice Khmer Rouge politics -- but they are
the cleanest bunch of politicians this capital has ever seen." Sen.
J. Biden
In the past the problem was money going directly
to the politicians. Now the problem is money going to the
campaigns from single issue organizations to buy 30 second attack ads on
television. A daunting challenge, yes; impossible, no. Campaign
reform is not a question of if but when and how.
"You can always depend on the American
people to do the right thing --
once they've explored all other possibilities."
W. Churchill
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