Abdicating Responsibility

Sen. John S. McCain (R-Ariz.) is on a crusade to rescue democracy in America. With his rakish grin and heroic silver mane, McCain promises to deliver us from the ills of a corrupt campaign finance regime. His ragtag band of rebels, including those muckraking scamps at The New York Times and the Washington Post, wages a guerrilla campaign against the Establishment. The amazing thing is that he hasn’t yet been offed by The Man, a fat fellow smoking Cohiba cigars in a cavernous K Street office who commands legions of anti-McCain lackeys—a deceptively ecumenical lot, with members stretching from organized labor and the American Civil Liberties Union to the Christian Coalition.

McCain, alas, isn’t much of a threat to this vast conspiracy of his feverish imaginings. Like Don Quixote, with Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) as his faithful Sancho Panza, McCain is tilting at windmills. His crusade, which has managed to fire up op-ed pages and college students across the country, is nothing more than a sideshow, a distraction from the real battles over the size of government and our nation’s place in the world.

Unfortunately, McCain’s “campaign finance reform” legislation, a delicious mixture of the merely unconstitutional and the grotesquely stupid, creates more problems than it solves. In our never-ending quest for easy answers, it looks as though it will pass, though in modified form. Rather than focus on its obvious drawbacks—in particular, the way it strangles political speech—consider the legislation on its own terms, as a cure for what ails our democracy. Instead of returning government to the people, McCain-Feingold will reduce the accountability of our elected representatives and, in stark contrast to McCain’s lofty claims, undermine democracy.

Charles Beard, dean of the Progressive historians, spoke of the “devil theory” of American politics—the belief that if only you replaced the devils with the angels in government, all would be well. Despite its apocalyptic rhetoric, it is a profoundly naive portrait of the world. By golly, if it’s that easy to solve all the world’s problems, why the heck can’t we do it straight away? Naturally, it must be the doing of some bad guys, be they evil corporations or immigrants or the Trilateral Commission. If only the special interests got out of the way, McCain could get together with his pals Teddy and Patty and Chuck to pass a patient’s bill of rights, rebuild the military and part the Red Sea, all before breakfast.

But why can’t they do all of this without passing campaign finance legislation? If the solutions our country needs are so blindingly obvious, why can’t McCain go ahead and assemble this bipartisan coalition of the good and the just? Corruption, of course.

But who exactly is corrupt? When asked this question by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others, McCain never names the culprits. We could chalk this up to civility, but McCain has never before revealed any qualms about engaging in that “straight talk” he loves so well. Is it because he himself was implicated in the Keating Five scandal of the ’80s? As the standard newspaper accounts go, his involvement in that scandal led him to his jihad against the special interests.

So what exactly is the reason? Well, McCain says that everyone in Washington is corrupted by the campaign finance system as it stands, and so it’s unfair to single anyone out. McCain, however, is obviously not corrupt—nor is Feingold. Their hunger for special interest dollars doesn’t prevent them from making the tough calls and the right decisions, so what could be stopping all the others? Could it be that no one in particular is “corrupt,” that the situation is much more complicated? Could it be that, like McCain and Feingold, all senators and representatives are ultimately responsible for the decisions they make, irrespective of where their campaign cash comes from?

The theory behind “campaign finance reform” is that the special interests pay the piper and thus call the tune, so we need to muzzle the special interests. Instead, how about holding politicians accountable through the electoral process and leaving the special interests alone?

Keep in mind that the special interests—the elderly, environmental organizations, civil rights groups and, yes, corporations—are us, nothing more and nothing less. No matter what kind of laws Congress passes, citizens will band together and try to influence government as long as government tries to influence us. By banning soft money donations to political parties, McCain-Feingold will force money to shift from parties, which are broad coalitions that appeal to the center in order to build majorities and are accountable at the ballot box, to independent groups that answer only to their own members.

As Kathleen Sullivan, dean of Stanford Law School, has recommended, the government should eliminate all contribution limits and have full disclosure. Candidates should name all of their benefactors and be held responsible for every reckless advertisement and every appearance of impropriety. Of course, this proposal isn’t very sexy and, as a result, will almost certainly not see the light of day. Instead, we are traveling down a dangerous path of less accountability and less responsibility.

McCain pays lip service to democracy, but what exactly does democracy mean in a modern society? Few citizens have the time to master all the intricacies of today’s vast government and complex society. Instead, we elect leaders and hold them responsible for the peace and well-being of the republic. McCain’s campaign finance crusade represents an artful attempt to abdicate responsibility, to engage in the effortless demagoguery of blaming others for the failings of today’s politicians. In this regard, it is a greater threat to democracy than all the unregulated political speech in the world.

Reihan Morshed Salam ’01 is a social studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House.