Reform Campaign Finance

(Enforce the Law)

WASHINGTON—The new year may not be happy for the Clinton administration.

The president's legal defense fund recently returned more than $600,000 in donations from an Arkansas businessman who may have acted as a surrogates for the Chinese government at White House meetings.

Congress will also likely spend months investigating campaign contributions funneled through the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign from China, Indonesia and South Korea.

Much like health care in 1993 and immigration in 1995, campaign-finance reform could be a stealth political issue. Barely noticed during the campaign, it has the potential to dominate the policy agenda in 1997.

What should be done is simple: Enforce the laws on the books. But the reformers, led by Common Cause and various groups founded by Ralph Nader, aren't content to apply old laws.

They want to add new restrictions. The current passion among reformers is to ban or strictly limit money from political action committees.

They would also restrict or eliminate "soft money," the unlimited supply of dollars that individuals, businesses and interest groups can give to political parties. And they would prohibit campaign contributions from non-citizens, even those who will eventually become Americans and already live under U.S. laws.

It's hard to believe that candidates and campaign operatives who so shamelessly break existing laws will miraculously rehabilitate themselves when the laws become tougher to obey.

The good-government types are right when they say the problem is power. But the power they worry about is the wrong kind.

The clout wielded by well-connected individuals, businesses and advocacy groups is less troublesome than the coercive might of government.

A growing number of election watchers, including conservatives Pete du Pont, Tony Snow and Mona Charen suggest a different type of reform: Repeal limits on private campaign spending or contributions but require full disclosure of funding sources.

Requiring disclosure compromises the privacy of donors, but when people are trying to influence policy, it's not a bad idea to know who wants to buy what.

But the demand to document every jot and tittle is troubling. Requiring full disclosure would only enhance the tendency of election agencies to occasionally act like jack-booted thugs. A more sensible approach would set reasonable reporting thresholds.

Individuals or groups that contribute, say, $ 1,000 or less to a cause need not disclose anything. In addition, set a sensible level for the amount of donated labor and equipment that can go unreported.

Above those levels, make political contributors open their books. The law should neither stifle genuine grass-roots activism nor encourage fat cats to conceal their motives.

Bob Dole suggested one reform that would directly reduce the coercive power of the state: Pass a law implementing the Beck decision.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that the dues of union members can be used for only one purpose: the maintenance of each member's contract.

Dues can't fund political activities, help organize another work site or buy cars and houses for union bosses. Unions can, of course, voluntarily raise money for all these and more.

Neither the Labor Department nor the National Labor Relations Board has enforced Beck. And in this election alone the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization of 78 unions, spent more than $ 70 million on ads for Democratic candidates.

Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform points out that, if only 10 percent of union dues funded political action (campaign workers, phone banks, computer equipment and so on), unions illegally contributed $1 billion in the 1996 election cycle.

Since the Republicans retained control of Congress, and exit polls indicated that about one-third of households with union members voted Republican, reining in labor bosses could reach the top of this year's agenda.

Enforcing Beck would send the right signal about campaign reforms. Let information and influence flow athrough as many outlets as possible.

Changing campaign laws intelligently will not keep the Ralph Naders of the world from nagging, but perhaps it might make the nagging easier to tune out.