Op-Ed; Campaign reform gets hung out to dry

Thomas M. Keane Jr.
811 words
16 October 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
031
English
(Copyright 2002)

If we're all so angry about the state of politics, why is it that we're about to vote away the commonwealth's best chance for reform?

Question 3 on the November ballot asks: "Do you support taxpayer money being used to fund political campaigns for public office in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?"

It's what's known as an advisory question. Put on the ballot by the Legislature, the question is intended to be a referendum on the state's Clean Elections Law, passed by ballot initiative in 1998. Most politicians are hoping you'll vote "No."

And it appears that will happen. Polling suggests Question 3 will lose overwhelmingly.

It's understandable. The Clean Elections Law sticks in the craw of many. They viscerally react to the idea that they are compelled to give their money, through the tax system, to finance the campaigns of people they don't like and don't support.

And, on a practical level, tax money spent on politicians' election campaigns competes against other priorities in the budget. That didn't seem like much of a problem back in the heady 1990s. These days, however, with a strapped state government announcing new cuts almost weekly, it's hard to justify denying an impoverished senior citizen a nursing home bed just so a pol can run another attack ad.

On top of that, the trial run of Clean Elections this year was hardly auspicious. With the exception of Warren Tolman, most of the candidates who chose to run under the Clean Elections banner were unimpressive. Some, indeed, seemed flaky. And Tolman's run itself was bothersome. After spending $3.9 million in the Democratic primary, he came in last, leaving the sour taste of negative ads in the mouths of many.

All, it seems, good reasons to vote "No" on Question 3.

Except for one problem: The campaign system in Massachusetts is still broken.

Clean Elections came about as an effort to impose radical reform on a flawed electoral system. Politicians seemed like panhandlers looking for the next donation to support their campaigns. Those who wrote a check would get a pol's time and attention. Those who did not were ignored.

Yet what choice did politicians have? For most, running a campaign meant getting on the phone at 9 a.m., begging for dollars until 6 p.m. and then spending the evening at fund-raisers. The cost of an effective campaign was so high that fund-raising became all- consuming.

The only way around this conundrum was for would-be politicians to be so wealthy that they didn't have to raise money. And increasingly, it's those plutocrats who dominate politics.

There are many advantages to being fabulously wealthy. Plutocrats don't have to spend their days on the phone and they are largely immune from the demands of lobbyists. Sometimes they can do things that mere mortals can scarcely imagine. New York's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, for example, personally guaranteed the $75 million the Democratic National Committee was seeking from cities hoping to host the 2004 presidential convention.

Aha. A few more plutocrats like those we could use. Instead, Massachusetts has Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, both of whom are perfectly happy to fund their own campaigns but haven't seen fit to write a check to cover the state's budget deficit. And this year will mark the first time that plutocrats will control both the Republican and Democratic tickets for governor.

Mitt Romney and Kerry Healey are both wealthy, of course. Shannon O'Brien was not - she was a panhandler until she hit upon the brilliant strategy of letting a plutocrat, Chris Gabrieli, be her running mate. Gabrieli, in effect, became her personal piggy bank, turning O'Brien into a faux plutocrat.

None of this is good. The money-grubbing of the panhandlers alienates voters who believe that the public good is traded away for personal gain. And the plutocrats turn democracy into government by the rich, where leadership is bought, not won.

This is the sad state of affairs that campaign reform was supposed to fix. Clean Elections may, in fact, have problems. But the solution, as former President Bill Clinton used to say about affirmative action, is to "Mend it, not end it."

That won't be what happens if Question 3 loses. Rather the Legislature, which has despised the law from the moment it was first enacted, will interpret a "No" vote as license to do away with Clean Elections altogether. With government increasingly dominated by panhandlers and plutocrats, the cynicism voters feel now toward state government will only grow.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

Caption: TOLMAN: Not a good poster boy for the cause.

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