Fixing the system

As the Democrats’ bad-donation account swells, Republicans may be gleeful as the oppositon party’s top cadre fumble to explain the inexcusable. Eventually, however, the weight of responsibility for systemic political failure will fall on the GOP as well.

Acting on the principle that the best defense is a thorough, cleansing audit, the Democratic National Committee has been scouring records of contributions to its campaigns. The discoveries have been unpleasant. Thus far, $1.6 million has been sent back to contributors, and, according to insiders, more, at least $1 million more, will be returned to sender.

The problem in most cases is the source of the funds. Money has flowed from foreign donors, some of it outright, some allegedly laundered through middlemen in the United States. The most notorious trail led through Democrat fund raiser John Huang.

Purging the party of past sins and atoning with the public is a work in progress. Part of the plan includes voluntary penance imposed by President Bill Clinton himself. The party is restricting its fund raising — no more dough from U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign corporations or cash from noncitizens legally in the United States.

Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, party chairman since January, believes some of the constraints excessive. He would be right if he represented a party that had played the last election clean in its campaign finances. His didn’t. Not by a long shot. Donations from Indonesians and influence peddlers with connections to Communist China, and the now well-reported accounts of the selling of the White House, by the night, have tarnished both the Democratic Party and the national image.

Mr. Clinton overreacted, and he is being criticized by Hispanics, Asians and others whose organizations are on the up and up, and who now feel unfairly excluded from the process, but the president is caught in a tangled web he wove for himself.

It would be unfortunate if the prospect of prolonging the president’s predicament discourages thoughtful Republicans from coming to the aid of an electoral system compromised by candidates’ need to scrounge for cash and the subsequent presence of donors hovering near the tables where public policy is made.

Campaign finance reform is becoming a priority issue in America, and politicians who obstruct that process may be cast by the voters into the same pit with officials who have abused the public trust. The most effective mechanisms to address head-on the corrupting influence of money is contained in the bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.

McCain-Feingold will ban soft money that ostensibly supports the peripherals of campaigns and contributions from political action committees, while offering discounts on TV time and mass mailings.

This is a sorry day for America. The president himself stands as a symbol of campaign finance abuse and the sale of political influence to high rollers. The remedy, however, is not for Democrats to overreact to demonstrate their good intentions, or for Republicans, cushioned by the 3-1 advantage in fund raising, to moralize about the administration’s pathetic behavior. The answer is for partisan politicians to behave as statesmen, pass McCain-Feingold, and fix the system.