John LeBoutillier
Wednesday, March 14, 2001

The Bush administration is contemplating supporting Senator Chuck Hagel’s alternative bill, which is a bit of a ‘cave-in’ for Bush because even this bill limits so-called ‘soft money’ contributions.

But the administration wants to defeat the McCain-Feingold effort and needs another ‘horse’ to ride. The Hagel alternative is it.

However, both attempts at ‘campaign finance reform’ miss the boat – by a long shot. Let me please explain.

What is killing politics today is the mad dash for campaign cash. Politicians – both the challengers and the incumbents – spend almost all their time raising money. Congressmen spend hours each and every day calling people and asking for donations to their next race – always less than a year and half away.

A U.S. senator from a populous state has to raise anywhere from $30,000-$50,000 per week for each and every week of his/her six-year term in order to pay for the next campaign!

This is, of course, legalized insanity.

If anyone doubts that this encourages all the wrong behavior, they are naïve.

Of course politicians on both sides are more prone to ‘selling’ their votes in return for a lobbyist holding a six-figure fund raiser for them.

And of course a politician is going to spend more time and effort on someone who can deliver Big Bucks to them than on someone who cannot.

It’s called SURVIVAL and HUMAN INSTINCT.

The campaign finance reform bills to be debated next week actually make a lousy system even worse. Both bills weaken the two political parties by reducing the money given to them – and therefore the parties’ ability to enforce party discipline, a main ingredient of successful government.

The Hagel Bill, perhaps with Bush administration support, raises the direct donation limit from $1,000 to $3,000 – a much-needed reform.

But the real problem is the need for this money in the first place: the cost of television advertising.

Rather than limit how politicians can raise money to pay for this always-escalating TV time, we ought to go in another direction: Give federal candidates free TV advertising for the six weeks leading up to an election.

Please remember something we all may have forgotten: The airwaves belong to us! They are ours!

The licenses to broadcast over them are auctioned off by the feds – and those licenses have to be renewed regularly.

Why couldn’t we change the terms of licenses to make valuable minutes of advertising time available to nominated candidates in federal elections in prime time and other times, too?

This simple change in the law would immediately eliminate that awful, ridiculous and corrupting mad dash for cash that is polluting our politics.

Sure, TV executives would squawk like mad. But who cares?

Those are our airwaves.

And what better use of them than to educate and inform the voters – for free – during an election campaign?

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