Taking an Ax to the PACs

By Susan Tifft

Critics of special-interest contributions fight back

What is Representative Dan Rostenkowski going to do with half a million dollars in leftover campaign money? Take it with him?" So asked a full-page ad in Chicago's Albany Park News, deep in the district of the Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "Who does Representative Mickey Edwards care more about? You and your vote? Or the auto dealers and their money?" So read another ad in the Ponca City, Okla., paper in Republican Edwards' district. Both ended with the same kicker, "Write and ask him."

The provocative ads, and eight others like them, are the first volleys in a new war against political action committees (PACs). Leading the PAC attack: Philip Stern, a Washington philanthropist and liberal Democratic activist who last September joined forces with New York Republican Whitney North Seymour Jr., a former U.S. Attorney, to form the nonpartisan "citizens against PACS." The group's goal is to pressure Congress into eliminating the corporate, labor union and special-interest PACs that make what Stern calls "ax-to-grind" contributions to candidates. Says he: "We want to make it uncomfortable for Congress to continue accepting PAC money."

Stern has mailed copies of his ads to every Senator and Congressman to put them on notice that their campaign finances might be similarly scrutinized. When Democratic Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin received his packet, he shot back a sizzling letter decrying the tactic as "immoral." Stern counters that every ad is meticulously documented and published only after a Senator or Congressman has been offered a chance to tell his side of the story. When Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico was asked why he did not return a $10,000 gift from the American Medical Association PAC (AM-PAC), Bingaman replied forthrightly, "I can't afford to."

Indeed, elections have become so expensive that turning down funds from any legal source is difficult. Largely to blame, ironically, are the post-Watergate reforms in the law governing election spending. Amended in 1974 to reduce the influence of wealthy contributors and end payoffs by corporations and unions, the law instead legitimized PACS, enabling individuals to band together in support of candidates. It also gave such groups an outsize voice (a PAC can donate $5,000 to both a candidate's primary-and general-election campaigns, while an individual can contribute only $1,000). The unintended result: in the decade since 1974 the number of PACs has grown from 608 to 3,803; in the same period, annual PAC donations have leaped from $12.5 million to an estimated $120 million. Says Republican Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, a virulent PAC opponent: "It's a myth to think they don't want something in return."

Democrat Steve Severn, who lost his bid for Iowa's Second Congressional District seat in 1980, remembers his first trip to Washington to solicit campaign funds. "I found myself in line with candidates from all over," he says. Each PAC asked the money-hungry hopefuls to fill out multiple-choice questionnaires on issues important to the PAC. If a candidate's views measured up, and he looked like a good shot to win, he got the money. Says Severn: "The process made me sick."

It also moved him to act. In 1983 Severn established LASTPAC (an acronym standing for Let the American System Triumph) to make Iowa voters aware of the moneyed influences entering state campaigns and to support national anti-PAC legislation. "It is the PAC to end all PACs," says Severn.

Through the activities of LASTPAC, Citizens Against PACs and the citizens' lobby Common Cause, PAC is becoming a dirty word and a campaign cudgel. Pressured by PAC-shunning opponents and an anti-PAC crusade by the Boston Globe, the leading contenders in this year's Massachusetts Senate race--Democrats James Shannon and John Kerry and Republican Elliott Richardson--are refusing PAC support. Complains Shannon: "We keep hearing how quiet this race is. Well, without PAC money no one can afford to be on television or in the newspapers."

Candidates who elect to run PAC-less campaigns, however, are still in a decided minority. Only two members of the Senate and eight Congressmen decline to accept PAC contributions.* No wonder: unless a candidate is personally wealthy or politically invulnerable, the highroad can be a short cut to defeat. Democratic Congressman Tom Harkin of Iowa, for example, takes PAC money even though he has voted repeatedly to limit PAC influence. Says a Harkin aide: "To refuse PAC money would be to lay down your sword when you know your opponent has a gun."

To make money less of a weapon, Activist Stern is lobbying to include the offices of Congressman and Senator in the legislation that this year will provide $130 million in tax revenue for presidential candidates. Several bills now before Congress provide for public financing. But there is a practical roadblock on Capitol Hill: incumbents, who receive 77% more in PAC donations than challengers, have no desire to vote away their built-in advantage.

PAC opponents are confident that they will succeed eventually. "The confrontations over the PAC issue are going to get worse, not better," predicts Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause. "We all have the same goal: to get rid of a rotten system that simply has to be changed."

--By Susan Tifft. Reported by Hays Corey/Washington and Richard Homik/Boston

*Democratic Senators David Boren of Oklahoma and William Proxmire of Wisconsin; Democratic Congressmen Anthony Beilenson of California, Andrew Jacobs Jr. of Indiana and William Natcher of Kentucky; Republican Congressmen Bill Archer of Texas, William Goodling of Pennsylvania, Willis Gradison Jr. of Ohio, Jim Leach of Iowa and Ralph Regula of Ohio.

With reporting by Hays Corey, Richard Homik