Molly Ivins July 10

AUSTIN — Jim Hightower once observed that the beauty of gavel-to-gavel coverage of public events is that it empowers the average citizen to conclude, "Holy smokes, my senator has the IQ of a dust bunny."

As those who have been watching the early rounds of the Senate campaign finance hearings know (we cannot call them campaign finance reform hearings since congressional leaders have no intention of reforming any of this), we already have some dust-bunny contenders. Robert Bennett of Utah, the one who put up the helpful graphic about John Huang ("Lippo," "Chinese Government" and "Clinton," all with arrows drawn to "John Huang") is clearly bucking for the role.

Happily, there seem to be some sensible folks, as well. My nomination for most cogent observation on the first day was Sen. Carl Levine's opener, "The real problem, the real big problem with the way we finance campaigns today, is what's legal." Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois also addressed the obvious: "There is a curious fact. The more money we spend on each election cycle, the fewer Americans vote. ... They are telling us they have no confidence in this process. ...

"Let me speak for a moment about the China card that has been played today. ... I am troubled as much by what we are not investigating as what we are. Every press account of foreign efforts to involve itself in our political process points to that involvement primarily at the congressional level, and yet this committee will not touch that issue. We will not even address this infiltration or alleged infiltration of foreign sources and foreign money into our own elections. ...

"If China played no role in the last campaign, we would still have a serious national scandal in our campaign finance system. The problem is not just foreign money, it's good old American money. It's hard money, soft money and mystery money."

Sen. Bob Torricelli of New Jersey: "The American campaign finance system has been an accident waiting to happen. Our system of campaign finance is an invitation to any interest with a desire to compromise the policy of the United States and to use money as a lever of power. ... My worst fear as this committee convenes to begin its own hearings is that our work, no matter how well-intentioned by some, will become nothing more than another excuse by many to delay consideration of fundamental reform of the system."

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania: "I believe that we will not have campaign finance reform in America until the American people demand it. And there is the potential in this committee to create that demand, and that is the job which we have before us."

Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia: "To be sure, there are numerous variations in terms of sources and uses of money in politics, including the very serious matter of foreign influence. But the campaign chase for dollars is at the root of these allegations. ... It's time to face the situation that our democracy is becoming an auction rather than an election."

I was disappointed by Sen.

Fred Thompson of Tennessee, chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee and one of the few Republicans willing to buck his leadership on campaign finance reform. He focused almost exclusively on the alleged Chinese plan to influence American politics, in that sorry old xenophobic, red-baiting fashion, and devoted only a minute or so to the broader issues. Having dangled supposedly eye-popping allegations in front of us, he then retreated behind the "national security" curtain.

Look, folks, what we rather clearly have here is a case of SI, Special Intelligence, meaning communications intercepts, telephone taps, surreptitious monitoring of conversations, etc. I would hesitate to reveal this astonishing national security secret except it's been in every spy thriller written for the last 15 years. It's certainly not going to come as news to the Chinese.

Somebody on our side picked up something from the Chinese that sounds either suspicious or ambiguous, depending on who's reading it. The Chinese, thrown into a tizzy when Congress invited Taiwanese President Li Teng-Hui to visit the United States in May of '95, apparently decided they needed to get their rears in gear and start their own lobbying effort to influence American policy. Them and everybody else.

The "China Lobby" is famous in Washington — but it refers to Taiwan, not Beijing. The China Lobby had such undue influence for so long that we persisted in our insane policy of "not recognizing" China for decades (we used to pretend that rather elephantine country was cleverly hidden behind a pair of Foster Grant sunglasses: all credit to Richard Nixon for finally putting an end to that nonsense).

This campaign to influence America apparently included the standard operating procedures — hiring a lobbying firm, inviting more congressmen to visit China and a public relations campaign. And it may have included funneling money into American campaigns, particularly congressional campaigns. Gee, I wonder where they got that idea? How on earth did they get the notion that one can buy access and influence in the American political system with campaign contributions? Could it be that foreign governments and firms spending money on American politics is a somewhat common practice? Was that a British firm I noticed giving a huge party at the last Republican convention? Did U.S. Rep. Dan Burton demand a contribution from a lobbyist for a certain Middle Eastern nation? Did George Bush get a bunch of money from the Japanese? Did Haley Barbour get a bunch of money from Hong Kong? Etc. Etc.

Looked at from the perspective of other countries, America getting its knickers in a twist over foreign money in our elections is enough to make a cat laugh. Fellow citizens have been known to put quite a lot of money into influencing elections in other countries, where our big bucks go a lot further in determining the outcome than anyone else's can in ours. (The total of questionable contributions from any source to the Democratic Party in the 1995-96 election cycle comes to less than 1 percent of what the Democratic Party raised.) The Nicaraguans must be especially amused about this.

Do I think it's amusing? Hell no. Nothing about our current system of campaign financing, aka legalized bribery, amuses me. I just find it stupefying that Republicans as intelligent as Fred Thompson still think they can look into campaign financing and pretend it's a Democratic Party problem.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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