SHIELDS & GIGOT JUNE 28, 1996 TRANSCRIPT

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Campaign finance reformers were defeated in two out of three branches of government this week. Both parties are "dripping with hypocrisy," the NewsHour's political analysts say. But Mark Shields and Paul Gigot agree on little else.

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In today's Online Forum, an expert answers your questions on the campaign money trail and options for reform JUNE 24: Senator Feingold defends the McCain- Feingold campaign finance reform bill against an opponent APRIL 15: NewsHour coverage of "soft" money contributions. APRIL 10: NewsHour coverage of complaints against organized labor for millions of dollars in campaign spending. Trent Lott and Tom Daschle talk about partisan politics in the Senate

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, our regular political analysis by Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, campaign financing reform, it died another death in the Senate. Is this something to be upset about?

MARK SHIELDS: I think it is, Jim. I think the system we have now is so absolutely corrupt-laden that anybody who's involved in it, anybody, is diminished by it. It is--Jim, it is a disaster waiting to happen. And this was a chance, a bipartisan chance, by two unlikely allies, Russ Feingold, a reformer, progressive Democrat from Wisconsin, John McCain, a war hero, a conservative Republican from Arizona, and to do something about it, and, you know, I think it's impossible to look at our system and say that it is anything other than tilted in favor of the incumbents. In 1994, the biggest year in political history for changes. The Republicans take over Congress. 91 percent of the incumbents who ran won. This is--

JIM LEHRER: Whether Republicans--

MR. SHIELDS: Republicans and Democrats.

JIM LEHRER: All right.

MR. SHIELDS: I mean, this is an incumbent-driven system. It favors the incumbents. Both parties are dripping with hypocrisy on the issue.

JIM LEHRER: Paul.

PAUL GIGOT: He's right about both parties dripping with hypocrisy. The campaign finance system is a mess. The only thing that would have made it worse is this bill. Uh, in fact, the mess, the biggest mess in campaign finance is, what we've seen is at the presidential system, which was reformed about 20 years ago in the great post Watergate reforms, put limits on spending, $1,000 contributions. So what happens? The only kind of people who can run in that system are two kinds, the well known and the well heeled. You have the millionaire loophole.

JIM LEHRER: Millionaire loophole meaning that you can spend as much--

MR. GIGOT: As much as you want.

JIM LEHRER: --of your own money as you want.

MR. GIGOT: If, if it's your money.

JIM LEHRER: If it's your money, right.

MR. GIGOT: So you get a Steve Forbes, but a guy who's a regional candidate, even somebody like Pete Wilson from California, who has a huge array of, of potential contributors, couldn't find enough contributors to really make an impact. Well, that is because of those reforms that were made 20 years ago, in part, partly modulated by the Supreme Court. So this reform would have done the very same thing, or similar things, to the congressional system.

JIM LEHRER: So you don't think there should be any caps on spending at all for--is that basically your, your idea?

MR. GIGOT: I think that Larry Sabato and Glen Simpson, the Virginia professor, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Glen Simpson, just did a very good book about campaign finance and corruption in general in politics. Their solution is: disclosure plus--but you can spend anything you want--but let's us know who it is, we'll see who, who the ties are. You pay a political price for that because the other side can use it, but as long as we know, consenting adults, free speech, campaign spending, go to it.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of wow--

MR. SHIELDS: Let's just argue history here right now. We have had a level playing field at the presidential level beginning in 1976. Jim, we've had four incumbent presidents run for reelection. Three of them have lost. Three of them have lost under that system. Now, you can't tell me that this is a system that favors incumbents. It doesn't. If anything, Jimmy Carter was an unknown, who came out of nowhere to win. This is a system that is open, in fact, to challenges, a lot more so, where money doesn't matter. Money is not determinative, John Connolly being the principal example who raised and spent $12 million and ended up with one delegate in 1900. What we now have is a system, Jim, of the United States Senate and the congressional level, and Paul's aware of it as well, where if I'm an incumbent member of Congress, I can spend, as Fred Thompson, the Republican Senator from Tennessee--no one's been better on this issue than he--he said, look, he said, this is a system made for the incumbents, just made for it. He says, I've been a challenger, I've been an incumbent, and I can tell you it's made for the incumbents.

JIM LEHRER: Everybody explain--explain how it works.

MR. SHIELDS: Okay. This is how it works. We have a system in the United States right now at the congressional level that amounts to nothing less than legalized extortion. Okay. Legalized--

JIM LEHRER: All right.

MR. SHIELDS: I sit as the ranking member, as a Democrat on the Ways & Means Subcommittee on Trade. Okay. You represent the Korean Coat Hanger Association, they're trying to get coat hangers in this country. I have my trusted staff assistant or campaign aide, Mr. Gigot, write you a letter and say, Congressman Shields, you know, ranking members are having a little fund-raiser. Now, you've got a choice, Jim. You can come in, buy the table for $5,000, or you can sit in the ante room for the rest of the session not able to plead your case to me. That's how the system works.

JIM LEHRER: I buy access.

MR. SHIELDS: You buy access to me.

JIM LEHRER: By putting the $5,000 on the table.

MR. SHIELDS: By making a contribution. And now--

JIM LEHRER: Go ahead.

MR. SHIELDS: --there's no poor people's PAC. Bob Dole said that, and he's absolutely right. We have in the United States of America 41 million people without insurance. We have one out of four kids in poverty, and--

JIM LEHRER: Let's ask Paul. Do you agree with his description of the problem at the congressional level?

MR. GIGOT: No, not really. Part--I would say the bigger problem is it helps incumbents. I agree with helping incumbents in this sense. There's a $1,000 limit on what you can give. In 1968, Gene McCarthy, who ran and challenged and ended up pushing out of the race a sitting President, Lyndon Johnson--I talked to Gene McCarthy about this. I said, what was one of the reasons you could do it? It's because a couple of people with an--idealistic individuals--Stuart Mott, Jack Dryfus with a lot of money, put it behind him. They could write big checks because they felt strongly about it. If Gene McCarthy didn't have a message that resonated, it wouldn't have resonated. The problem at the congressional level now is that if you're a challenger, you've got to go around, and you've got to raise 'em with $1,000 increments. You can't go to somebody who can really help you out with a big check.

JIM LEHRER: The complaint about that. I mean, we heard on this program time and time again and anybody who meets anybody from Congress, whether they're Democrat or Republican, says that very thing. They spend half their time, more than half their time raising money and just less than half actually doing the job as a member of the Congress of the United States.

MR. SHIELDS: That's absolutely right. That's Fred Thompson's point. And what this bill would have done--and first of all, let me just correct a little history.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

MR. SHIELDS: Stuart Mott, if we're going to elevate Stuart Mott, canonize him.

MR. GIGOT: I'm not canonizing him. I'm saying--

MR. SHIELDS: Stuart Mott in 1968, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated for President took a full page ad in the New York Times. Offering Hubert Humphrey, who was on broke, who was on--who didn't have car fare at that point--$100,000--the full page ad, New York Times, $100,000, he changed his position on Vietnam. Now--

MR. GIGOT: Because he felt strongly about it.

MR. SHIELDS: How about Shell Oil saying, will you change your position, Jim, on, on the depletion allowance? I mean--what about $100,000?

JIM LEHRER: Speak to that issue. I mean, if you had--if you don't--if you take the caps off--I mean, isn't the power going to go to the people with the money? How can there be any other result?

MR. GIGOT: If there wasn't an important resonating issue like Vietnam was, it wouldn't have mattered. I mean, you can throw all the money you want at it, and Gene McCarthy would have gotten nowhere. The point is that--

JIM LEHRER: They supported--he already had his position. They supported it. They didn't mandate his position. They didn't buy his position, you're saying.

MR. GIGOT: And they didn't buy his support with the voters.

JIM LEHRER: That's what I mean. Yeah.

MR. GIGOT: You know, you can throw an awful lot of money at people, and we do it all the time in this country, but if it happens to be an unpopular position, you don't win. I mean, ultimately, what you're talking about with money in the system is lubricating the system enough so that free speech can be heard, so that different sides of the argument can be heard. Is there--as long as--as long as people know who the contributors are, as long as people know that Bob Dole has ties to Dwayne Andreas, or the Democrats have ties to the trial lawyers, well, voters can sort that out. What's wrong with that?

MR. SHIELDS: Political Action Committees arrayed against the Feingold--McCain--Thompson bill this week--Wellstone bill, the reform bill, where are the trial lawyers, where are the Chamber of Commerce, where are labor, where are the teachers lobby, where are the Christian Coalition, where are the pro-life, where's Emily's list--sure--why--because they've got a deal going, Jim. The deal is very simple, Jim. If I'm running a Political Action Committee in Washington, I'm a big man. I don't care if you're a chairman or whoever. You've got to come see me. This isn't about mom and pop out in Missoula sending in a check. They can send in a check. This is about somebody at a Political Action Committee sitting there dispensing checks, and, and it's in exchange for access. It's as simple as that.

JIM LEHRER: Access. Access.

MR. GIGOT: Well, actually the system that Mark would have proposed, would have supported would actually have ultimately, but the current system, what it does is it enhances the power of a lot of those special interest groups because I'm a challenger, I've got to go out. I've got to raise this money in $1,000 increments. If you have spending limits--

MR. SHIELDS: Which the bill includes.

MR. GIGOT: Yeah. It would have included spending limits. You're going to ultimately--you're going to end up enhancing the power of the Emily's lists and the NRA and a lot of these other groups because you cannot--the Supreme Court will not ultimately allow the speech of those groups to be limited. It is unconstitutional because they're going to--the Supreme Court has said you cannot limit the rights of people to express themselves in campaigns. And so that--ultimately you end up with spending caps that limit what the--what the candidates can say, so you increase the power of other groups with other assets, the manpower of the labor unions, the power of the media because we own newspapers or broadcast studios. Why do that at all?

MR. SHIELDS: What this, what this bill did is very simple. It simply said if you agree to spending limits, as an incumbent and a challenger, okay, level playing field, that you then would be entitled to half an hour of free time, television time, and reduced cost free television and free mailing. I mean, Jim, that's--

JIM LEHRER: All right.

MR. SHIELDS: --that's where the costs are of campaigning.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. And that's not going to change. What would you do about that? I mean, would--is that just the name of the game, the costs of advertising are going to continue to go up, just going to have to continue to raise more money, and it would be easier if you could it by making fewer calls?

MR. GIGOT: I don't object to the ideas that are out there, that networks in an election year, in the autumn would allow candidates to have time to give out their message, but I don't think that's going to solve the, you know, the problem of 30-second spots because people are still going to buy 'em. I don't think it's going--they're going to put their money in direct mail, or in other things. They're going to do whatever they can.

JIM LEHRER: Paul mentioned the Supreme Court, and quickly, the Supreme Court did make a decision and, in fact, took, the caps off of what a political party can pay to--or can contribute to an individual candidate's campaign. What do you think of that?

MR. SHIELDS: I read the Supreme Court decision. Let me say, all I was reminded of, Jim, was when Lyndon Johnson was Vice President of the United States and he was just absolutely waxing euphoric about John Kennedy's cabinet, and saying, it's the smartest, best educated, most knowledgeable, boy, oh boy, he's talking to Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, and Sam Rayburn said, "Lyndon, I just wish one of 'em had run for sheriff." I just wish one of these theoreticians had been in a campaign and know what it's like, Jim. People don't give $5,000. Altruism is not an operative principle in American political campaigns.

JIM LEHRER: We have to go. I'm sure you have something to respond to that, Paul, but we have to go. See you next week. Next week.

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