Campaign finance reform died yet another death in Congress this year. One reason is that reformers don’t think clearly about their cause. They’re so sure that money is corrupting American political life that they forget to explain how.
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Consider, for instance, the “list of horribles” put out by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) in October. They didn’t call it that, of course. They called it “Campaign Finance From A to Z”–26 examples of “generous contributors getting what they want from Washington in 1997.” It was a popular list; the on-line edition of Mother Jones magazine picked it up. The CRP reformers thought the point of their list so obvious that they didn’t even state it: the measures are supposed to be so manifestly bad that nobody could possibly have voted for them unless their consciences had been deadened by large sums of cash.
Under M the reformers at CRP write, “Market Access Program. This Department of Agriculture program labeled by taxpayer groups as ‘corporate welfare’ gives private companies, trade associations, and cooperatives $90 million a year to promote their products overseas. Lawmakers failed to eliminate the program that benefits among others the owner of the Nabisco food company, RJR Nabisco, which gave $147,500 in PAC contributions.”
Just between you and me, the First Amendment has something to say about that.
