Reform hungry

A summer of hearings exposed our nation’s corrupt campaign finance system for what it is — a vile goulash of buying and selling, wheeling and dealing. The table is set for reform. The public is ravenous.

How utterly predictable and pathetic it is then that Republican leadership would serve poison. In statements made separately, but surely cooked up in concert, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich say McCain-Feingold will get a hearing but will not pass.

The bipartisan reform bill by Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Sen. Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, already is pared down to the essentials. It bans soft money, those megabucks contributions from rich donors and interest groups ($271 million in the 1996 election) that are not subject to election law. It tightens restrictions on independently funded issue ads, those thinly veiled attacks that wrap up a thoughtful presentation on Medicare by asking why Candidate X persists in drowning kittens.

McCain-Feingold is far from perfect, but it is one heck of a lot better than what Lott and Gingrich offer, which is business as usual.

After saying the Senate probably wouldn’t squeeze McCain-Feingold into its agenda until the very end its session, Lott tried to pull a fast one last week by moving it to the top, hoping to catch supporters unaware and unable to muster the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.

Gingrich, never one to let statesmanship interfere with partisanship, promises to load up any bill in the House with a ban on contributions by organized labor, knowing full well that’s as much a kiss of death for Democrats as a ban on contributions from Big Oil, Big Agriculture, Big Broadcasting, Big Banking and Big Everything Else would be for Republicans.

Then there’s Sen. Mitch McConnell. Kentucky’s answer to the question “What’s wrong with this country?” persists in his belief that unregulated, unrestricted political contributions are a matter of free speech and it’s not his fault that some influence-buyer with $300,000 to burn can afford more free speech than you.

And, of course, there’s the Democrats. As the Thompson hearings have shown, they are every bit as dirty as Republicans, if not more so, and a good deal less subtle about it to boot. If the fight for McCain-Feingold proves too tough, there is a real danger the Democrats will load it up with anti-Republican amendments so the donkeys can pin the blame on the elephants.

This is where the public comes in. The poor public, so outspent only 6 percent contribute their hard-earned dollars to federal candidates. So disillusioned barely 50 percent bother to vote. So apathetic it allowed this to happen.

It is time to act. Not with torches and pitchforks, not with grumbling and fuming, but with phone calls, faxes and e-mails. It must be made clear to every senator that allowing a filibuster to succeed would be political suicide. House members must understand that siding with Gingrich puts them on the fast track to forced retirement.

Odds are McCain-Feingold, in practice, will be less nourishing than it looks. Special interests no doubt already have figured out ways to water it down, found new loopholes to get money in and favors out. Still, the public just might find asserting itself — for good government, for its own good — whets the appetite for more. Participating in democracy, after all, is an acquired taste. Try it — you might like it.