Molly Ivins March 29

AUSTIN, Texas — If there were an Oscar for Hypocrisy in Campaign Financing, we would all have to stand back in awe at the quality of the performances. What breathtaking stinkers. Difficult though it is to pick out one player even more outstanding than the others, you must admit that Newt Gingrich deserves a special accolade.

For best performance in the arcane art of using parliamentary procedure to kill a bill that even members of your own party would like to pass: Newt "The Speaker" Gingrich ... Yeeeaaay!

Back in that halcyon era (June of '95) when Gingrich and President Clinton shook hands in agreement on the need for campaign finance reform, the most we hoped for from our performers was what we've gotten from Clinton: practically nothing. The president theoretically supports campaign finance reform, and to that end, he occasionally opens his marble heart and devotes a sentence or two to the subject. But Newt ... ah, Newt has really had to work to delay, derail and destroy it.

His latest coup was to haul campaign finance reform off the agenda entirely after his trusty lieutenants were unable to round up the votes to block genuine reform. Since Gingrich promised House members they would get to vote on the issue this spring, he now looks like dog-doo. But fear not: The wily speaker now plans to put reform back on the agenda — on a special calendar that requires not a majority to pass the bill, but a two-thirds vote. Clever, eh?

Gingrich might have gotten away with putting up a rotten travesty of a reform bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.). This little charmer of a proposition contained so many poison pills that it would have gagged a maggot — and that's without mentioning a truly imaginative feature whereby it outlawed soft money going to the national parties but not to the state parties. Same sorry corruption running through different channels.

I really wonder how someone can get to be cynical enough to write a bill like that and then call it reform. Happily, this nasty ploy was foiled by some stalwart Republicans from the East, backed by the Democrats, who for once managed to stick together.

Reps. Chris Shays of Connecticut and Martin Meehan of Massachusetts have a bill that has been quietly gathering support while all the Washington They-Sayers were saying it couldn't be done. (A recent caller to Jim Hightower's radio program said that all he hears from television commentators these days is "cynicism, sarcasm and orgasm.") Thomas' phony reform bill was doomed to defeat, and the Shays-Meehan bill then would have been moved in its place.

That's why Gingrich pulled down the bad bill.

The Shays-Meehan bill, like its McCain-Feingold twin in the Senate, doesn't do nearly enough, but it does do something. The important something is to ban soft money — the unlimited, unregulated gobs of cash from corporations, unions and rich folks that go to the political parties.

Soft money is completely out of control. According to Common Cause, the parties raised $67 million in soft money in 1997, which was not an election year. That's more than double the amount of soft money raised in '93, the last comparable post-presidential year. This is the money that is buying your government right out from under you.

Want to know why some brave Republicans are willing to buck the speaker (and a few in the Senate are willing to go against Majority Leader Trent Lott)? Because politicians really don't like whoring for money.

I know, you think they're all shameless and that kissing behinds is their favorite pastime. It's not true. Somewhere underneath the thousands of compromises that most politicians have to make to win and hold office, there once stood a citizen with a simple impulse: Run for office, and try to make this a better country. (That they often can't agree on even one idea about how to do it is just the nature of democracy.) They really did not sign up to be prostitutes, and they hate the money game.

You think this is no skin off your nose because you never vote and pay no attention to any of it? Heads up, bubbas. Just for starters, Common Cause, a citizens' group that works for campaign finance reform, has found the following recent gems:

— Because of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, pay-phone charges went up from 25 to 35 cents in most parts of the country. In addition, according to Common Cause, jumps in cable and pay-phone rates cost consumers $2.8 billion every year.

— Brand-name drug makers have given millions in contributions to Congress, and many have been allowed to hold on to their drug patents longer. According to Common Cause, loss of access to generic drugs can cost the consumers up to $550 million a year.

— For the past three years, Congress has voted to freeze fuel efficiency standards for minivans and sport utility vehicles. Because of these actions, Congress added about $544 a year to the average family's fuel bill. Overall, it costs consumers $59 billion annually.

Since 1991, the special interests documented in the Common Cause report "Pocketbook Politics" have contributed $61.3 million to politicians. In return, consumers have lost tens of billions of dollars. And that's just from a few special-interest bills — there are hundreds more. I suggest that you race to the nearest 35-cent pay phone and tell your congressperson you want to get the government off the corporate payroll!

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

COPYRIGHT 1998 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.