THE MONEY IN POLITICS

...Congressional hearings this year seem unlikely...

...Then, if time is more important than a second drink, he may depart...

...Sheer price inflation is one reason: In just two years (1960-1962), for example, the cost of a half-hour on television in Minnesota has gone up one-third...

...The Commission suggests these Federal grants be held in the Treasury and used for payment of specific bills for campaign services (radio, television, billboards, newspaper advertisements, and the like...

...Today, Washington, D.C.—the "seat of lobbying" as well as the seat of government—has become an important source of out-of-state money for Congressional and Senatorial candidates, and fund-raising techniques are being tailored to meet the lobbyists' needs...

...THE MONEY IN POLITICS by PHILIP M. STERN "Tf the Billie Sol Estes case," a New JJ-York Times editorial observed recently, "were to result in concrete action" to reduce or eliminate politicians' dependence for election campaign expenses on large contributions from private donors, "it would mark a turning-point in the nation's political development...

...Ordinarily, such reports as are filed are collected haphazardly by the designated Congressional officials, and the extraction of intelligible information from them is a tedious and frustrating procedure...

...This has already been criticized as "freezing the status quo," Umt this objection could be met by permitting tax-favored gifts to any committees approved by the candidate for whose benefit the gift was intended...

...The proposal for "matching incentive" Federal grants meets the principal objections to Federal contributions cited by the Commission: It would stimulate citizen participation rather than lessen it...

...In addition to its Presidential backing, the Heard report has been endorsed by the chairmen of the two major parties, by former Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and by former Presidential aspirants Thomas Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, and Richard Nixon...

...Since at the time Senator Magnuson did not even have a declared opponent, the $300,000 seemed a generous campaign fund, but the Senator said that any surplus would be given to charity...

...These same five states produced $4.5 million for the G.O.P...

...Only $200,000 of the $10 million spent by the national Democratic Party in 1960 could be traced directly to the Dollars for Democrats drive...

...The root of the trouble, therefore, lies as much with the political parties' failure to solicit small gifts as with the citizens' failure to give...

...The Gore "experiment" was suggested again in 1960, but quietly shelved— an indication of the Congressional resistance that is liable to greet the proposal for an independent repository of election finance records...

...Quick, quiet, tidy...

...The Commission also exhorts the Justice Department to more vigorous enforcement of the election laws...

...Broadening the base" would effect fundamental changes in the current pattern of political contributions...

...The only trouble is, I don't know which half...

...They responded with the appropriate message...

...The contributors of $500-and-over gave nearly $11 million of the $13 milPHItlP M. STERN, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, is now a free lance writer whose articles have appeared recently in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, and The Reporter...

...The virtues of "broadening the base" of political giving would be realized to the fullest if parties and candidates owed their principal allegiance to every taxpayer in the country...

...Most important is the proposal to do away with the legal ceilings on campaign receipts and expenditures, on the sound theory that "publicity has a cleansing and policing power far more powerful than that of limitations...

...The Times editorial was inspired by the revelation of substantial campaign contributions Estes had made to Senator Ralph Yarborough and Representative J. T. Rutherford, both Texas Democrats, as well as his generosity toward the national Democratic Party—he claims he gave $100,-000—that doubtless helped him win the recognition of a "Dear Billie" letter from Vice President Lyndon Johnson and an autographed picture ("with appreciation and warm regards") from President Kennedy...

...25,000 for a Senate race, when $1 million may easily be spent...

...But as government activity grows (as it inevitably will), so will the stakes in influencing it and the willingness of pressure groups to contribute toward that end...

...But surveys • disclose that only fifteen per cent of Americans were even approached for a political contribution in I960...

...Hence the party organizations as well as the voters need an incentive for small-gift money raising...

...Both Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, as well-known Senators seeking third-term re-election in 1960, spent three times as much as they had in 1948, when they were running as unknown contenders (and when the money simply was not available...

...The latter provision would also tend to assure the disclosure of large contributions, since revenue agents might question a $750 or $1,000 political deduction that failed to appear on any public contribution list...

...As campaign spending soars farther and farther above the ridiculous ceilings set in Federal election laws, campaign financing is more and more an under-the-table affair and contributors become increasingly anonymous...

...A change in the present fund-raising system is urgently needed...

...in a two-month period in 1956...

...In 1952, eighty per cent of the $8 million raised by the Republicans came from five states (New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania...

...Occasionally, though, a more direct return on the investment is asked...

...At the height of a recent off-year election, one oil industry spokesman made it known to a number of struggling Senatorial candidates that a message or statement from them or their campaign managers favoring the continuation of the percentage depletion allowance would be "to their advantage...

...Campaigns today are so expensive that even the most idealistic candidate cannot avoid seeking funds from those few large contributors made indispensable by the prodigious sums involved...

...The lobbyist can slip in, make his contribution at the door (often in cash), and have a few private words with The Candidate...

...This is the appeal of the proposal which the Heard Commission says we must wait eight years even to consider: Federal grants to match the first $10 of any political contribution...

...Tax advantages would thus be denied contributions to labor political groups, to independent organizations such as the Volunteers for Stevenson or the Citizens for Eisenhower, and to reform and dissident elements within state parties...

...Despite legal prohibitions, various campaign expenses are secretly borne by unions and corporations: Company planes are loaned, campaign staff members are placed on union or corporation payrolls, and such items as long distance telephone charges and TV production expenses are charged to union or corporation accounts...

...The average billboard cost is up fifteen per cent...

...Politicians are not chancetakers by nature, and they will spend as much as they can raise...

...There have been campaign contribution scandals before (such as the offer in 1956 of $2,500 to Senator Francis Case of South Dakota in return for his vote on the natural gas bill) but no election reform has ever ensued...

...Some candidates calculated that the depletion issue did not mean any more or fewer votes in their states, but, with their financial backs to the wall, some extra campaign money could count heavily...

...The rules: no written invitations, no printed tickets or guest list...

...Larger contributors could deduct political gifts of up to $1,000 ($750 in the Kennedy proposals to Congress) from their taxable income, as they now do with charitable contributions...

...Volunteered gifts being notoriously rare, the tax stimulus will be effective only with those who are actually asked to give...

...Principal among these are two alternative tax incentives for political contributions...

...Fund raisers for Richard Richards, California's Democratic Senatorial candidate, for example, talk hopefully of a $700,000 budget...

...f Just 334 donors of $5,000-and-over gave nearly $3 million in 1960...

...Uncertainty is another factor—uncertainty about how much the other fellow is raising and spending, uncertainly as to when and whether that extra dollar will spell the difference between victory and defeat...

...To argue that this is senseless or wasteful is to bay at the moon...

...The achievement of this end will more likely require some direct Federal contributions to campaigns...

...The Commission seems to have placed high value on unanimity, and presumably all the members of this bipartisan panel do not philosophically support the Federal contribution principle...

...Tactically, it can be argued that no Federal contribution plan will ever be enacted unless all reasonable efforts to stimulate voluntary giving are tried and demonstrably fail...

...Also proposed is the establishment of a central Registry of Election R-: nance to receive, tabulate, and publicize the financial reports of candidates, and enforce the rules (at the moment no one so much as nudges a candidate who fails to file a report...

...But the Commission insists on postponing consideration of its best idea for eight years while its tax incentive plan gets a try-out in two Presidential elections...

...There is little question, though, that the Heard Commission proposals—especially the tax incentives, the removal of the legal ceilings, and the independent Registry of Election Finance—are major steps in the right direction...

...Small gift fund-raising is expensive, slow, and yields pitifully small results compared with the multi-million dollar demands of modern campaigns...

...The law permits expenditures of only $5,000 for a House race, when $25-50,000 is often spent...

...As it is now, every candidate is forced to breach the absurdly low ceilings and hence cannot honestly report his actual receipts and expenditures...

...This year, however, there is a new element in the picture: strong Presidential backing for reform measures...

...Current party fund-raising procedures are understandable...

...The cost of TV spot announcements rose forty-five per cent between 1956 and 1960...

...The testimonial affair need not be held in the capital to attract important out-of-state contributions...

...The dismal results of most advertising and mail efforts prove that an army of hardworking buttonholers is essential to any small gift campaign...

...The most efficient and rapid fund-raising techniques, therefore, remain the telephone calls to the loyal "fat cat" or pressure group spokesman, or the $100-a-plate dinner (marked up to $l,000-a-plate for the privilege of dining with President Kennedy at the recent New York birthday extravaganza...

...The Commission timidly decided, however, that the country must wait at least eight years before even considering such a plan...

...A reasonable Federal contribution plan, for example, might cost no more than ten cents per person per year...

...James A. Farley, former national chairman of the Democratic Party, once said, "I know that half of what is spent is wasted...

...There is also a heavy geographic concentration of giving...

...The Commission on Campaign Costs has advanced a brilliant proposal for liberating politicians from pressure-group contributors—Federal matching grants for the first $10 of every political gift...

...Polls show that only nine per cent of the population makes any political gifts...

...But with such an impressive bipartisan array of supporters—coupled with President Kennedy's invitation to Congress to cut itself in on the tax incentive plan— perhaps next year Congress will do more than talk about the need for election reform...

...Moreover, most lobbyists doing business with an incumbent Senator are reluctant to be seen attending a fund-raising affair for his opponent...

...The luncheon, therefore, has given way to the "Golden Party," a more intimate affair held at the cocktail hour...

...The tried-and-true money-raising luncheon has largely been discarded: too time-consuming, too expensive, no chance for intimate contact with The Candidate...

...In 1956, the members of only twelve wealthy families contributed more than $1 million...

...Usually, pressure group contributors ask no specific quid pro quo for their contribution...

...The recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Campaign costs would, if adopted, considerably improve the public disclosure of campaign giving and spending...

...Ten cents a year seems little to invest in furthering the one man-one vote democratic ideal that is denied when a $1,000 contributor gets a more attentive hearing than a $10 donor or a voter unable to contribute...

...A good many observers wonder whether we can afford to experiment for eight years before we meet this problem head on...

...Each separate gift, whether it be $1, $10 or $1,000, would be matched up to a maximum of $10 from the Federal Treasury...

...These tax incentives would apply only to gifts to national party committees and to one committee in each state designated by the national party...

...This increasing reliance on out-of-state campaign funds provided by special interest groups means that a candidate can easily become far less responsive to the voters of his own state than to some unseen "financial constituents" who are barred from the ballot box but not from powerful influence...

...This plan rewards handsomely the party that successfully goes after the small gifts, and at the same time stimulates just such gifts, since every $10 contribution nets $20 to a favored party or candidate...

...By contrast— % Half of all campaign funds, come from the top five per cent of contributors...

...Small givers could deduct half of any eligible gift up to $10 ($20 for a married couple) from the taxes they owe the government (so that the taxes of a family contributing $20 would be reduced from, say, $200 to $190...

...Furthermore, a government-contribution plan in Puerto Rico, using the technique of direct payment of party-approved campaign bills, has operated with "scrupulous impartiality," the Commission reports...

...lion spent by the two national parties in 1956...

...In the interim, the Commission and the President are urging tax incentives to political giving as a means of "broadening the base" of contributions and lessening the dependence of both candidates and parties on a few wealthy benefactors...

...Campaign budgets are frequently irrational...

...Here the recommendations of the Heard Commission are less persuasive...

...Removing the ceilings also removes a convenient excuse for non-reporting...

...Do tax incentives get to the heart of the problem...

...Spending reports submitted to Congress are farcical (the two 1960 New Jersey Senatorial candidates, for example, reported expenditures of $18,233 and $10,642 respectively, a fraction of $200-$300,000 usually spent on a New Jersey Senate campaign), and many Congressional candidates fail to file any report...

...The presence of President Kennedy and, reportedly, "many others, in and out of government, from the Washington area," succeeded in filling six ballrooms and raising $300,000 in a Seattle testimonial to Democratic Chairman Warren Magnuson of the Senate Commerce Committee, which handles all legislation affecting radio and television stations, truckers, shippers, interstate pipelines, and airlines...

...It seems doubtful that the tax incentives proposed by the Heard Commission will induce sufficient voluntary giving to liberate parties and candidates from their dependence on wealthy and pressure-group contributors...

...Such a plan would provide roughly $7 million to each major national party in a Presidential election, plus ample contributions to House and Senate candidates—$75-100,000 to a Senate candidate, and $10-20,000 to House candidates—plus smaller contributions to minor-party Presidential candidates and to serious primary candidates for the House and Senate who win more than, say, ten per cent of the primary vote...

...Important as improved public disclosure is, the stimulation of more political giving by more people is far more urgently needed...

...What has caused the sharp increase in campaign spending...

...They merely want the comfort of knowing that an attentive Senatorial or Congressional ear can be theirs at some future date when an attentive and influential ear is needed...

...A bipartisan Presidential Commission on Campaign Costs, headed by Dean Alexander Heard of the University of North Carolina, has made broad recommendations which the President modified slightly and in late May forwarded to Congress...

...and $3 million for a national party committee, although $10 million was spent by each major party in 1960...

...In 1956, however, a Senate subcommittee, headed by Tennessee's Democratic Albert Gore and aided by punch cards and special alphabetizing machines, published a remarkably comprehensive and comprehensible report on 1956 Presidential campaign contributions...

...but since both parties have their soiled political linen, a live-and-let-live philosophy has permeated both party Administrations...

...if Republican incumbent Senator Thomas H. Kuchel raises a like amount, nearly one and a half million dollars will go into the California Senate race alone...

...The costs of campaigning will continue to mount and "disinterested money" will be increasingly difficult to come by...