Michael Waldman: Reform Doesn't Always Follow Scandals Like Abramoff
[Mr. Waldman is executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.]
...In the long struggle to strengthen democracy, reform sometimes follows scandal, but not always. Often appalling corruption has produced a yawn rather than a shriek. True progress comes only from rare ''reform moments,'' when accumulated public outrage combines with potent policy changes.
In the late 1800's, everybody knew that campaigns were financed by patronage appointees, but it took the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881 by a spurned job-seeker to spur civil service reform.
At the beginning of the last century, the rise of corporations bred new corruption, tainting even President Theodore Roosevelt. After it was revealed that Roosevelt had received large donations from the insurance industry in 1904, he felt his honor had been besmirched. ''Sooner or later, unless there is a readjustment, there will come a riotous, wicked, murderous day of atonement,'' he told a reporter, and eventually he won passage of the first federal law banning corporate campaign gifts.
A 1906 muckraking article in Cosmopolitan magazine called ''The Treason of the Senate'' exposed how corrupt state legislatures controlled the senators they appointed and sent to Washington. Public outcry was so fierce and sustained that the Constitution was amended in 1913 to provide direct election of senators.
Another great wave of reform came in the 1970's. After Watergate, Congress established public financing and voluntary spending limits for presidential races. It even imposed spending limits on legislative contests, though that provision was struck down by the Supreme Court. Scandal begat reform locally, too. New York City's landmark public financing system, under which candidates receive matching public funds, was enacted not because of vague good-government sentiments but in response to the 1980's scandals that led to party leaders being imprisoned and a former Queens Borough president, Donald Manes, committing suicide.
Unfortunately, just as often scandals lead merely to cynicism and fatigue, from Teapot Dome in the 1920's to the Abscam criminal convictions of Congressmen in the 1970's. The savings and loan collapse of the 1980's produced the memorable image of the Keating Five senators testifying in shame before Congress. A new president, Bill Clinton, whom I served as a political reform adviser, proposed reform. But House Democratic leaders soon got what Lincoln diagnosed in his generals as ''the slows.'' I will never feel more frustrated than I did standing in the Senate antechamber as reform was filibustered to death.
Intriguingly, the most recent campaign finance law passed without the spur of a specific scandal. Yes, the public was aware of the rising role of soft money, and stories of big donors staying in the Lincoln Bedroom got wide attention. But the bipartisan campaign reform act introduced by Senators Russell Feingold and John McCain passed only after six years of patient organizing.
So, can the Abramoff mess become a true tipping point? It depends on the boldness of the reform proposals. Yes, measures to tighten disclosure for lobbyists, like those proposed by Senator McCain and Representative Marty Meehan, are no doubt needed. But voters should insist on a stronger system to transform campaign finance at the same time. ...
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...In the long struggle to strengthen democracy, reform sometimes follows scandal, but not always. Often appalling corruption has produced a yawn rather than a shriek. True progress comes only from rare ''reform moments,'' when accumulated public outrage combines with potent policy changes.
In the late 1800's, everybody knew that campaigns were financed by patronage appointees, but it took the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881 by a spurned job-seeker to spur civil service reform.
At the beginning of the last century, the rise of corporations bred new corruption, tainting even President Theodore Roosevelt. After it was revealed that Roosevelt had received large donations from the insurance industry in 1904, he felt his honor had been besmirched. ''Sooner or later, unless there is a readjustment, there will come a riotous, wicked, murderous day of atonement,'' he told a reporter, and eventually he won passage of the first federal law banning corporate campaign gifts.
A 1906 muckraking article in Cosmopolitan magazine called ''The Treason of the Senate'' exposed how corrupt state legislatures controlled the senators they appointed and sent to Washington. Public outcry was so fierce and sustained that the Constitution was amended in 1913 to provide direct election of senators.
Another great wave of reform came in the 1970's. After Watergate, Congress established public financing and voluntary spending limits for presidential races. It even imposed spending limits on legislative contests, though that provision was struck down by the Supreme Court. Scandal begat reform locally, too. New York City's landmark public financing system, under which candidates receive matching public funds, was enacted not because of vague good-government sentiments but in response to the 1980's scandals that led to party leaders being imprisoned and a former Queens Borough president, Donald Manes, committing suicide.
Unfortunately, just as often scandals lead merely to cynicism and fatigue, from Teapot Dome in the 1920's to the Abscam criminal convictions of Congressmen in the 1970's. The savings and loan collapse of the 1980's produced the memorable image of the Keating Five senators testifying in shame before Congress. A new president, Bill Clinton, whom I served as a political reform adviser, proposed reform. But House Democratic leaders soon got what Lincoln diagnosed in his generals as ''the slows.'' I will never feel more frustrated than I did standing in the Senate antechamber as reform was filibustered to death.
Intriguingly, the most recent campaign finance law passed without the spur of a specific scandal. Yes, the public was aware of the rising role of soft money, and stories of big donors staying in the Lincoln Bedroom got wide attention. But the bipartisan campaign reform act introduced by Senators Russell Feingold and John McCain passed only after six years of patient organizing.
So, can the Abramoff mess become a true tipping point? It depends on the boldness of the reform proposals. Yes, measures to tighten disclosure for lobbyists, like those proposed by Senator McCain and Representative Marty Meehan, are no doubt needed. But voters should insist on a stronger system to transform campaign finance at the same time. ...