Campaign Reform With Smarts : Senate version would elevate American politics

Campaign finance reform comes to the floor of the Senate Thursday in a bill sponsored by Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.) and incorporating President Clinton’s campaign promises. Unlike some past reform efforts, this one is as sharp-eyed as it is well-intentioned.

Its cap on Senate race expenditures, for example, is not rigid but flexible: lower for small states, higher for big ones. And when it comes to public funding for campaigns, the legislation sticks Washington lobbyists, perhaps the one group less popular than Washington legislators, with the tab by eliminating the tax-deductibility of lobbying expenses. No change could be better calculated to improve the political marketability of the reform. Proponents can rightly claim not only that the vast majority of Americans will not pay a higher tax bill if public funding is provided in this way but also that the federal budget deficit will not grow because of it.

No candidate can be barred, constitutionally, from exceeding a campaign expenditure cap. But government funding can be made conditional on a challenger’s acceptance of the cap, and the acceptance can then become a powerful public relations issue to use against an over-the-top, free-spending incumbent. Lobbying, too, as a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech, cannot constitutionally be banned, but to eliminate its tax-deductibility is by no means to ban it.

The Boren bill flushes several nasty little devils out of the political underbrush. Thus, if the bill passes, candidates will not receive cash from the government but only “communication vouchers” redeemable for broadcast time and the like. Similarly, the bill eliminates the incumbents’ right--not shared with challengers--to send campaign mail at government expense.

In one of the inimitable shoot-from-the-hip remarks that make him the political reporter’s favorite interview, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) recently said, “If (House Republicans) were smart, they would accept the public financing provision and sunset it after four years.” In other words, they would vote for the reform legislation, which (amazingly, Dole was admitting this) would assist Republican challengers in gaining seats in the heavily Democratic House, but they would then vote to revoke the reform lest it similarly assist Democratic challengers.

There is the nub of the matter. Present campaign law does not favor either Republicans or Democrats: It favors incumbents. Dole is oiling the filibuster machine again, but this time a few Republicans less lavishly provided with the benefits of incumbency than he is may just break ranks. If they do, the whole country will be in their lasting debt.