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Editorials |
Article published Sunday, December 1, 2002
A flood of campaign money
Right out in the open, but with little public
attention, Republicans who control state government in Columbus are
preparing to open the floodgates to special-interest money in the
political process for the first time in nearly 100
years.
Their vehicle is Senate Bill 291, being touted as a
"reform" measure to require broader disclosure of who gives money to
political candidates and issue campaigns. But while the legislation
would improve disclosure, it eliminates prohibitions against direct
contributions by corporations, labor unions, and other special
interests that have stood in Ohio since 1908.
In fact, the
bill would roll back true reforms enacted over the past 30 years to
temper the influence of special interests in state politics by
limiting what they can give.
Terry McCoy, president of the
League of Women Voters of Ohio, calls Senate Bill 291, sponsored by
Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green), "a blatant attempt to sneak
permission for corporations to contribute to electioneering
communications into Ohio law for the first time in almost a
century."
Indeed, the bill contains so many loopholes
favoring business that it appears to have been drafted in the
offices of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
The chief apologist
for this Machiavellian maneuver is Secretary of State Ken Blackwell,
who declared in testimony before a Senate committee that there is
"no cause for alarm" at the institutionalization of special-interest
money because, hey, the "door for corporate and labor influence is
already open."
Corporations and labor unions, Mr. Blackwell
pointed out, "are currently able to influence the political process
by publicly donating unlimited dollars to ballot issue committees.
They are also able to secretly contribute unrestricted amounts to
issue advocacy groups."
What the secretary of state did not
own up to is that those special-interest loopholes continue to exist
because he and his fellow Republicans, including Gov. Bob Taft,
benefit politically from them. They could, if they chose, close the
loopholes, but Senate Bill 291 will ensure that the door through
which money and influence passes is kicked open even
further.
Under the bill, corporations and unions would be
permitted to contribute up to $10,000 for "generic campaign
activities," so loose a definition as to allow exploitation by
candidates as direct corporate aid. And there’s also a mysterious
provision for acceptance of "gifts" from persons or entities that
otherwise would be prohibited from contributing political
money.
The trade-off for unleashing all this special-interest
money appears to be the bill’s requirements for expanded disclosure
of who’s giving. But this is a no-win choice that will not cure what
ails our political system.
The campaign-finance system -
already roughly analogous to legalized bribery in the minds of many
Ohioans - would be better off with less, rather than more,
special-interest money.
Proponents of Senate Bill 291 have
their priorities exactly backward.
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