Special Interests

With the congressional election season ramping up for this fall, it's impossible to ignore the ugly influence that money has on our elective system. As Republican and Democratic former members of Congress, we have seen this influence firsthand. Money severely impacts who can run for office, who gets elected and who has a seat at the table when policy is made. It casts a pall over our government that must be addressed if we are to realize our basic democratic ideal of government of, by and for the people.

Dr. Carlton Lasley Sexton, a retired Baltimore internist who was also a member of the clinical faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, died July 20 of pneumonia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. The former longtime Stevenson resident was 87. The son of a businessman and a homemaker, Dr. Sexton was born and raised in Pensacola, Fla., where he graduated from Pensacola High School. He combined his undergraduate and medical school education in the Navy's V-12 program, an accelerated course of study during World War II that was designed to prepare physicians for military service.

Why am I not surprised? Once again, Maryland politicians put their own pockets and special interests in front of the consumers (" Wine-shipment ban might stay in place," Feb. 8). Too bad our elected folks hide behind lame excuses like the fear of additional underage drinking. How naive. Like ordering wine on-line is the first thing a theenager is heading out to this week's party. I can hear them now. "Why Mary, are they having veal at John's house when his parents leave town? I was thinking of a nice Pinot Noir from Oregon."

The Sun finally got one thing right: A special session of the Maryland legislature is needed - but not for the reasons stated in your editorial ("Twice as nice?" April 25). King Marty and his clown princes, Mike and Michael, need to reverse the shell game they've been playing with their subjects for the last several years. Every year, the king raises taxes to fund "shortages" in, alternately, the education, transportation and public safety budgets. Then, when the peasants are not looking, they shift the money to the special interests - satisfying their big-time donors - and to failed social programs.

Why has The Sun been quiet on the "Cadillac" health care plan debate? If you're an ordinary citizen who has a "Cadillac" health care plan, you will pay a 40 percent excise tax on the plan. Unless of course you're a union member or government employee and have a "Cadillac" plan. Then you will not pay the tax. President Obama promised to change the way Washington does business. Special interests and the influence of lobbyists was going to end. It's time for The Sun and the national media to call him on it. Len Bollinger Send your comments to talkback@baltimoresun.

It seems that the Baltimore City Council has once again sided with special interest groups instead of the health and welfare of Baltimore City residents. The beverage tax is a way to raise significant revenue without a significant cost to consumers. It is hard to believe that business owners will suffer due to a 4 cent tax. If the City Council were serious about raising revenue, they would increase it to 10 cents. If consumers chose not to purchase unhealthy beverages due to a 4 cent increase, so be it. Milk and juice are excluded from the tax and can be healthier options.

We send our elected representatives far from home to conduct the people's business. We send them to Washington, D.C., where they form what our flyboys (and flygirls) call "a target-rich environment" for the lobbyists and for the political party leadership. We send them far from us … to conduct our business. There was no other way in the 18th and 19th centuries and most of the 20th. In the 21st century, of course, this is absurd. As things now stand, it is too easy for lobbyists and party leadership to get at our elected legislators.

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 -- President Clinton was right about everything except the timing when he warned Monday that special interests would begin attacking his economic program "within minutes" of the conclusion of his speech to Congress tonight.In fact, the attack has already begun, from coal companies and presumably from other industries concerned about an expected broad-based energy tax.On Capitol Hill, three representatives of ARCO, a major oil and chemical company, met in secret yesterday with six aides to members of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and discussed the tax issue over turkey sandwiches.

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.

One week after Maryland received a D- for corruption risk on a national report, legislators are poised to cement crony capitalism into the state code. Allegedly designed to expedite major developments and create jobs, legislation supported by Gov.Martin O'Malleyoutlining rules for public-private partnerships passed the House on Monday. The amendments in HB 576 - which give public-private partnerships special legal status, and do it retroactively - show this legislation is about one project near and dear to the O'Malley administration: State Center.

There is no better way to support democracy than to give people the information they need in order to make informed decisions. Taxpayers and stockholders alike deserve to know what corporate and union funds are being spent on elections. TheU.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case may have defined money as a form of free speech but it was decidedly anti-democratic. If Congress wants to demonstrate that it represents the people rather than the special interests, it could do so in no clearer way than to pass the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections, or DISCLOSE Act, which is currently stalled in the House and Senate.

The Supreme Court's assault on efforts to limit the toxic effect of money on elections in this country continued this week with the decision to strike down an important provision of Arizona's public financing of elections. Under the Arizona law, candidates who elected to have their campaigns publicly financed were eligible for additional so-called "trigger" funds if their privately financed opponents' fundraising exceeded a certain amount. The effort was to keep the playing field somewhat level.

Maryland law allows small political contributions to be bundled together and reported as "lump sums" in disclosure reports, and to hear defenders of the practice talk about it, the tactic is merely the campaign finance loophole for the little guy. The fat cats have their limited liability corporations, personal loans and political slates that allow them to funnel tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into candidates' campaign accounts with no...

Thank you for your editorial "Reckless slots politics" (July 29). It does more than point out Martin O'Malley's newly stated and ill-advised position on not putting slots in at Arundel Mills Mall, and the detrimental implications of yet another income-delaying boondoggle to Maryland's financial health, not to mention the taxpayers' burden. The editorial also illustrates the governor's penchant for political opportunism and another example of his feeble and fallacious attempts to paint Bob Ehrlich as a lobbyist for special interests.

It seems that the Baltimore City Council has once again sided with special interest groups instead of the health and welfare of Baltimore City residents. The beverage tax is a way to raise significant revenue without a significant cost to consumers. It is hard to believe that business owners will suffer due to a 4 cent tax. If the City Council were serious about raising revenue, they would increase it to 10 cents. If consumers chose not to purchase unhealthy beverages due to a 4 cent increase, so be it. Milk and juice are excluded from the tax and can be healthier options.

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.

The announcement by eight members of the Baltimore City Council that they do not support a 4-cent tax on certain bottled beverages is a triumph of special-interest politics. The bottle tax, estimated to bring in about $11 million to help restore some of the services cut as part of Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake's plan to close a $120 million budget gap, could be entirely avoided by Baltimore residents if they choose — either by buying larger containers, which are exempt, or skipping bottled water and soda altogether.