Essay: NOW IS THE FOR ALL GOOD MEN . . .

(3 of 6)

Consider bumper stickers, which a Los Angeles printing company unleashed by giving 500 free ones to a would-be assemblyman and then happily taking his rival's order for 500. This year's orders: 25 million across the land. Behind such escalation is the feeling that overwhelming money can win—at least in small constituencies. Thus in one rural Michigan congressional race, a Democrat trounced the Republican incumbent by outspending him $17,000 to $657. One term later, the Democrat confidently spent $30,000—and lost to a Republican challenger who spent $85,000.

According to the Citizens' Research Foundation of Princeton, N.J., the nation's only working watchdog of political spending, total U.S. campaign costs, reported and unreported, rose from $140 million in 1952 to $200 million in 1964. That, of course, is a sophisticated guess. The true political bill is not really known; it may be $400 million.

The sobering reason for this doubt is that U.S. disclosure laws are a joke. A reaction to the rampant capitalism of the late 19th century, when robber barons bought legislators like penny stocks, the laws were shaped by pre-World War I reformers, notably Teddy Roosevelt, who advocated federal campaign subsidies, but succeeded only in putting over negative legislation. While they cut off unclean money, the laws fail to provide new funding sources—and leave enormous loopholes through which candidates, by common consent, merrily march.

The 1925 Corrupt Practices Act and other federal laws make it as much as a five-year rap for violation of what look like very tough rules. No national bank, corporation, labor union or Government contractor can finance any federal candidate in any way. No individual may give more than $5,000 a year to any one candidate or committee. No political committee may raise or spend more than $3,000,000 a year; every committee must report to the House Clerk the names of all those who contribute $100 or more and of all those to whom at least $10 is disbursed. A House candidate may spend only up to $5,000, a Senate candidate up to $25,000. Before and after elections, every candidate must disclose all contributions and expenditures made by him or his agents "with his knowledge and consent." Candidates for President and Vice President are entirely exempt from these strictures.

In practice, the whole thing is Swiss cheese. Example: in 1960, the Democratic National Committee, supposedly bound by the $3,000,000 law, reported a $3,800,000 deficit. In 1964, ten Senate candidates, including Edward Kennedy, and 77 House candidates, including John Lindsay, reported no expenses whatever. For one thing, the law does not apply to committees operating within a single state, which exempts most Congressmen. For another, it permits the creation of numerous interstate committees that can each spend $3,000,000 a year—and secretly channel funds to the nonreporting state committees.