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COLD TURKEY
A campaign finance plan so crazy it just might work.

OK. I admit it. This campaign finance mess is making the remaining hairs on my head stand straight up. It's not the improprieties or the loopholes that are getting me bent out of shape. It's the system itself. Quite frankly, it sucks. It's about time we torched it and started over.
Despite all the attention on campaign finance over the past half year, nothing's getting done. The media are up on their high horses, shooting their guns in the air. But Congress has circled the wagons. They think they can just wait this one out.
The Senate bipartisan bill sponsored by Russ Feingold and John McCain, which bans so-called soft money and creates voluntary spending limits, is an honest effort. But the truth is, even if its sponsors managed to whip up some support, the bill wouldn't do diddly. Politicians would still have to spend absurd amounts of time hitting people up for money. Congressmen would still be sipping little-umbrella drinks by the pool on all-expense-paid weekends with lobbyists. The public would still be plenty pissed.
Well, hold onto your hats. I've got a radical plan to shake things up. My plan would sever forever all financial connections between office-holders and special pleaders. It would free presidents and legislators from demeaning panhandling and PAC-handling. It would make campaign finance violations easy to spot and punish. It would level the playing field between incumbents and challengers. Best of all, the public would be absolutely certain that their elected representatives were not up for sale.
Here's how it would work. First, we raise congressional pay -- big-time. In fact, I say we allow members of Congress to draw up to $350,000 a year. (If individual members don't want to be seen taking that much, they could opt to draw less.) In return, we get a simple piece of legislation that says members of Congress cannot take anything of value from anyone other than a family member. No lunches. No taxi rides. No charter flights. No golf games. No ski trips. No nothing.
Next comes the campaign part. I propose a complete ban on money-raising by incumbents. You read that right. No president or member of Congress could accept a single red cent from individuals, corporations or special interests. Period.
Challengers, on the other hand, would be allowed to raise money pretty much the way they do today. But here's the catch: Within 24 hours of receiving the contribution, the challenger would have to report it electronically to the Federal Election Commission. The next day, the U.S. Treasury would credit the incumbent's campaign account with a comparable sum -- say 80 percent of the original contribution, to take into account the cost of all the canapés and Chardonnay the challenger had to buy to raise his funds. In other words, if a carpenter's union gave the challenger $1,000, the Treasury would grant $800 to the incumbent he's trying to unseat. It couldn't be a whole lot simpler. You might even call it the flat tax of campaign laws.
The penalties for violations would be swift. If an incumbent accepts so much as a postage stamp, he loses his seat. If a challenger doesn't report contributions, he loses his shot. There will be no wiggle room in the law, no drawn-out ethics investigations. If you cheat, you're out on your ass.
What if the incumbent wants to spend his own money? After all, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the Constitution does not allow restrictions on how much money a candidate -- challenger or incumbent -- can spend. No problem. Uncle Sam would write the challenger a check for an equivalent amount. Unlike today, no one will have the upper hand simply because they're loaded.
What about soft money? It's gone. Soft money is supposedly for party building and get-out-the-vote efforts. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a much better way to get out the vote is to get the money out of politics. Soft money is nothing but a slush fund. It's got no place in democratic elections.
What if a sitting senator wants to run for president? Would he be allowed to raise funds? Sure. He'd just have to do what Bob Dole eventually did -- resign his Senate seat and hit the campaign trail like a regular citizen. If you want to run for a higher office, you have to get off your current pedestal first.
The idea here is to fundamentally change the role and responsibilities of incumbency. Under my plan, once you assume an elected office, you achieve a new status. You are no longer a campaigner. You are a leader. As such, you should not be in the fund-raising business. You should be in the exclusive business of making policy.
Today, about 90 percent of all senators and representatives are re-elected. Under current law, incumbents almost always have a huge money advantage. My calculation is that a majority of incumbents would be willing to give up that advantage in exchange for a more desirable job. Think about it. Not only would they be bringing in a much larger salary, they'd never have to kiss up to another rich donor. Never underestimate how much these folks hate spending half their time sniveling for money.
And what about the public? In 1996, taxpayers shelled out almost $250 million in subsidies. To pay for the pay increases and campaign grants to incumbents in my plan, a rough calculation says we would wind up having to double that sum. Some folks will look at it as more welfare for politicians, but I'd like to think most will see it as a pretty good deal. The current system costs the taxpayers a whole lot more than the $500 million in subsidies I'm proposing. Thanks to Bob Dole's impressive use of the back-scratching system now in place, taxpayers have anted up $5.9 billion in subsidies to ethanol producers alone! Letting Archer Daniels Midland act as campaign supermarket to the Congress comes with a very steep, if indirect, price. It's bankrupting us in more ways than one.
I've been quietly shopping this idea around town among big-name media honchos, politicians, lawyers and reformers. I'm happy to say this cold-turkey plan just might fly. Some will argue over whether salary increases are justified. Some will argue over whether the plan favors incumbents or challengers. Some will argue over whether it favors Democrats or Republicans. But at its core, this plan does something no one will argue with: It forever divorces the corrosive -- and sometimes corruptive -- effect of campaign cash from members of Congress and presidents. When American citizens look at their Congress and White House, they will know that their elected officials are making decisions for reasons other than money. Too bad that's such a radical notion.
May 5, 1997

What do you think of Carville's radical idea for campaign finance reform? Talk it over in Table Talk.