WILL THE DEMOCRATS TACKLE CORRUPTION-- I MEAN THE REAL THING, NOT THE WINDOW DRESSING

I'm packing a lot of books for my trip to Tierra del Fuego-- no computer and no electronic gears, just lots of books. My goal is to unwind and recharge and commune with nature-- and read for relaxation. My friend Milt Shook wrote a novel, Talent on Loan and I'm taking that along, as well as a couple of books on the history of Latin America, a book called Bones of the Master that my old college buddy Krishna Das gave me, and a new Harry Turtledove novel. If you haven't already taken my advice and read David Sirota's book, Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government-- And How We Take It Back, the holidays are a perfect time to read it. If you already have, then you already know that when it comes to exposing Inside-the-Beltway corruption, especially the really bad systemic kind, David is right on top of it. Today he's got a must-read at TomPaine.com about how the newly empowered congressional Democrats will be dealing with corruption.

Keep in mind that polls showed that Republican corruption ranked second only to Iraq among reasons that voters gave for voting against incumbent GOP legislators. David sagely advises Democrats to not just go for headline grabbing bullshit about banning lunches and golf trips with lobbyists but to go for the real McCoy-- "the nexus of money and politics. Specifically, they must push to publicly finance all congressional elections." Every Democrat I've interviewed has endorsed the concept, from ones who really believed it with all their heart and soul like Congressman-elect John Hall, Congresswoman-elect Kirsten Gillibrand, Ohio Attorney General-elect Marc Dann to one very crucial House member leader who probably wasn't quite as determined as the other three: Steny "K Street" Hoyer, the newly elected Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. The dismal system of campaign finance operating is, in short, the root of all corruption in our political system.

We have a system that is legalized bribery-- legal campaign contributions go in, and legal legislative favors go out. But just because it is legal, doesn't mean it isn't unethical and isn't one of the major reasons why our government can no longer solve problems. It is. A government cannot solve problems if members of Congress making decisions are forced by virtue of their campaign finances to appease the Big Money interests that are often at the root of those problems.

David sees good signs on the Senate side, with both extremely influential Illinois Senators, Obama and Durbin pushing in this direction and even a few Republicans showing acquiescence, if not actual enthusiasm. And according to a story in yesterday's New York Times "Common Cause says that 21 newly elected Democrats, more than half the class, and 69 incumbents have signed a pledge endorsing the idea."

However, as I pointed out yesterday, the Insider forces, regardless of partisan divide will are banding together, to preserve the status quo. You don't have to be a political reactionary to hate reform. Take Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) for example. Since her days on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and later when she was mayor of that city, she has built her career around gargantuan corruption, war profiteering and grotesque cronyism, much of it involving her defense contractor husband and real estate mogul, Richard Blum. So it should surprise no one that DiFi, as chairman of the Rule Committee, is already digging in her heels about reform and has already voiced opposition to an independent Congressional ethics watchdog. "If the law is clear and precise, members will follow it. As to whether we need to create a new federal bureaucracy to enforce the rules, I would hope not."

Like many incumbents (usually insiders by definition) DiFi has always opposed public financing because it negates a vast-- usually insurmountable-- advantage incumbents have over challengers. "You use taxpayer dollars to finance people who may not only be fringe candidates but-- I was going to use the term 'nut'-- may be mentally incompetent."

David points out the depth of DiFi's-- and other legislators'-- deceit on this:

Sen. Feinstein's logic, of course, is a patently dishonest canard, though you've got to give her credit-- her lie is an effective one in how it brings up thoughts of taxpayers having to fund the Charles Manson for Congress campaign. But let's get back to reality: Every serious public financing proposal-- including the ones that have passed in states like Arizona and Maine-- create thresholds to almost totally limit the possibility of "mentally incompetent" people from receiving taxpayer dollars to run a campaign. These thresholds often involve a candidate having to raise a certain number of small dollar contributions from a geographically diverse base in order to qualify for public dollars.

David's research on Hoyer led him to the same conclusion about his commitment to campaign finance reform that my brief conversation with him on the subject last week led me: happy talk with a sharp knife ready to cut out the heart of any significant reforms. "In a May 2006 Roll Call article, the spokesman for now-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said that public financing 'is not something he's looked at or focused on extensively.' That's Washingtonese for 'he will fight against it all the way.' And really, should we be surprised? Hoyer is the same lawmaker who brags to reporters about heading up the Democrats' K Street Project."

Will the Hoyers and the Feinsteins, not to mention the Emanuels and the entire Republican Party and it's propaganda machine be able to kill off real reform? Possibly. But David leaves us with some feelings of optimism: "Because public financing so fundamentally threatens how business is done in Washington, it will only become reality if progressives hit the trifecta of massive grassroots/netroots pressure, support from the batch of new lawmakers who ran on an anti-corruption platform, and an infusion of star power from someone like Obama. And make no mistake about it: the latter two wild cards have no chance of happening without the grassroots component-- a narrowly focused, carrot-and-stick campaign to embarrass, cajole and pressure Congress to act."

Public Campaign and Common Cause are both very well organized around this issue. Blue America intends to work as hard as we can to continue to push meaningful campaign finance reform as well.