Special Interests

Full-time legislators could avoid scandalIt would be helpful if your reporters covering allegations against state Sen. Larry Young gave consideration to the role that a part-time legislature plays in fostering relationships between its members and special interests that often result in conflict of interest.Citizens are right to expect legislators to avoid having financial interests in the issues on which they vote. Because of our unwillingness to pay General Assembly members a full-time wage for what is in reality a full-time job, however, we force legislators to seek outside sources of income.

Washington -- "I've said all along this is not written in stone,'' said Newt Gingrich of the Contract with America. Actually, he has said that only since January. He used to say things like, ''If we don't do what we say we'll do, then the people have a right to throw us out.''The retroactive disclaimer appeared this week in a newspaper article. It's proving hard to cut taxes, raise defense spending, protect Social Security and still move toward a balanced budget by 2002 without sustaining severe political damage.

Thanks to Ross Perot, Watergate and a mind-numbing array of home-grown corruption scandals, the world of politics has become user friendly for rich men with big ambitions like Stewart Bainum Jr.Mr. Bainum, a 47-year-old millionaire Democratic businessman from Montgomery County, is poised to enter the race for governor.Though he has not held public office since 1987, he has sufficient political standing to make a credible, perhaps even winning run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

It's election season, and everyone wants candidates to talk about the issues. That includes special-interest groups.This year, every organization from the Maryland Diabetes Association to the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association is bombarding politicians with questionnaires designed to pin them down on matters near and dear to their hearts.These surveys make candidates uneasy. In Anne Arundel County, District 32 state Senate candidate Ed Middlebrooks says that's because many of them seek firm "yes" or "no" answers to complex issues, leaving no room for a middle ground or an open mind.

Washington -- Who is Congressman Chris Smith?According to the official biography released by his office, ''Congressman Chris Smith, 4th District, New Jersey was re-elected to serve a seventh term in Congress on November 3, 1992, with 63 percent of the final vote. Congressman Smith has been an active legislator sponsoring bills with a particular emphasis on children, veterans, senior citizens, oppressed peoples, handicapped persons, small business, taxpayers and students. He believes that adherence to moral principles transcends both party loyalty and political pragmatism.

Political bedfellows are not always so strange. News that Democrat James B. Kraft, who is running for a seat on the Howard County Council in District 4, has received $2,000 in campaign funds from developer Donald R. Reuwer comes as little surprise. Mr. Kraft is a long-time political operative in Howard who has run an aggressive campaign. He also, not coincidentally, has ties to Democratic Councilman C. Vernon Gray, whose own fund-raising ability among developers is legendary.Mr. Gray has endorsed Mr. Kraft against his Democratic rival, Mary C. Lorsung.

The chairman of the Federal Election Commission says there may be "no money whatsoever" in the presidential election fund for candidates in the primaries in 1996. The money is provided in accordance with taxpayer "check off" instructions on 1040 forms. A taxpayer may designate $1 for the fund, without adding $1 to the amount owed. The fund now has $4 million. If 19 percent of taxpayers, which is the percentage that designated $1 for the fund last year, earmark $1 for the fund in each of the next four years, there would be approximately $124 million for the campaign of 1996.

Budget ChicaneryThe old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," comes to mind as President Clinton and Congress prepare to implement an "economic package."Most Americans perceive that the chicanery of the federal budget process must end if our children are to have any hope of enjoying the American dream.Common sense tells us there are several self-evident truths that cry out to be addressed:1. Social Security and Medicare are not prepaid insurance programs. These programs are actuarially insupportable.

WASHINGTON -- Critics of President Clinton's speech before a joint session of Congress outlining his sweeping health-care reforms are already taking shots at it. It did not provide enough specifics, they say, and its assumptions of cost savings are totally unrealistic. While both complaints may be valid, they cannot obscure the fact that he has confronted the country with a bold and historic challenge.Not since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 declared "a war on poverty" has any American president taken on such a colossal task of social engineering.

SHAKESPEARE'S "kill all the lawyers" has been replaced with "kill all the lobbyists." Journalists at most major publications have rushed to join the chorus. In a recent editorial, for example, the New York Times described the "threat that corporate influence and big-time lobbying represent to enlightened populism."I agree that the system needs to be changed. Campaign finance reform, stricter lobbying disclosure rules and post-employment restrictions for government officials and employees would serve the democracy well.

President Barack Obama says the big problem in Washington is that politicians focus on pleasing special interests at the expense of the general public. But his curious definition of "special interests" exempts one key political force: organized labor. Even during a recession, the public is ambivalent toward organized labor. In September, a Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans approved of unions. This was an 11-point drop from the previous year's approval rating and the lowest recorded since Gallup started asking the question in 1936.

Fix campaign finance to fix health care There are a number of reasons why the United States is 50 years behind the other wealthy countries in ensuring good health care for all its citizens. But surely the biggest is our country's uniquely permissive campaign finance system, which allows deep-pocket special interests to shower incumbents with money - at the same time lawmakers decide issues of direct concern to said special interests ("Under the influence," June 25). Foreigners laugh at this form of virtual bribery - and I don't blame them.

Maryland lawmakers logged more than a half-million dollars in political contributions during November's three-week special session, a time when debate over budget and tax issues roused intense lobbying campaigns by special-interest groups, according to an analysis by The Sun. The list of politicians who recorded donations during the session includes some of the most influential figures in Annapolis, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, whose finance report...

Gov. Martin O'Malley has been calling for a special session of the General Assembly next month to deal with the state's $1.7 billion budget shortfall. This is a very bad idea. A special session removes the safeguards that were put in place to ensure open and transparent government. The state constitution provides for an Assembly meeting of 90 days each year. This allows complex issues to be fully explored through public hearings, discussion, deliberation and careful consideration. When large and complex issues are forced into special session, the volume of discourse - and therefore the level of public participation - is significantly reduced.

County isn't aiding special interests For more than 30 years, I have fought to arrest or mitigate the influence of money in political campaigns. But the stark reality of political life in America today is that winning campaigns require a lot of money and candidates must spend an inordinate amount of time fundraising. Our system is awash in money. But most reform efforts get little traction in Congress or in state legislatures. The media that decry the influence of money in the political process often will, at the same time, eliminate from serious press attention candidates who fail to win the "money primary" by raising large sums.

A proposal aimed at reducing the influence of special interests in legislative campaigns by having Maryland taxpayers pay for them was debated in a state Senate committee yesterday. The bill's primary Senate sponsor, Prince George's County Democrat Paul G. Pinsky, said the bill would reduce the appearance of favoritism among legislators and enable candidates to focus on issues, not fundraisers. To be eligible for "public financing," candidates would have to raise seed money in sums of $5 or more from about 350 registered voters in their districts in addition to $6,750 in other contributions.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed into law yesterday the last major piece of legislation approved by the outgoing Congress - including a $100 million-a-year boost in the Medicare reimbursement rates for dialysis providers who proved to be heavy-spending lobbyists and generous contributors to important legislators, notably House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas of California. The dialysis providers were among many special interests benefiting from a piece of legislation that was designed to simply extend existing tax cuts and credits but ended up as a bill freighted with billions of dollars in new spending earmarks for everyone from the coal industry to Brooks Brothers.

Starting tomorrow Mayor Martin O'Malley's campaign will begin airing a television commercial featuring former President Bill Clinton's support. In the 30-second ad obtained last night by The Sun, Clinton says, "This year's election is especially important in Maryland. Because you have a chance to elect my good friend Martin O'Malley as your next governor." A photo of O'Malley and Clinton fills the screen. "There is a reason Time magazine named Martin one of America's best mayors - his dedication to safer streets, quality schools and making government work better."

I strongly support Michael S. Steele's candidacy for one simple reason: We need to change Washington. Congress doesn't need another career politician or political insider. We need someone who is a strong, independent voice for what is right, regardless of party politics. I know Michael Steele, and I know he will shake up Washington for all the right reasons. We see it almost every day: runaway spending, scandal, legislation written by and for special interests. Washington has become a culture unto itself where special interests reign supreme, where partisanship precedes statesmanship, and where the ambitions of politicians come before the interests of the people.

With apologies to the poet T. S. Eliot, this is the way the push for slots ends: not with a bang but a whimper. The absence of any hue and cry was notably striking last week when Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller quietly pulled the plug on a slots bill - ending any drive to legalize the devices this legislative session before it even got off the ground. This dead-on-arrival scenario was markedly different from the last three years when Mr. Miller and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. would have had us believe that Maryland could simply not survive another year without a big expansion of legalized gambling.