Tag: campaign finance

U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews decision to refund about $9,000 to his campaign account to cover money he spent on a family trip to Ireland highlights everything that is wrong with our campaign system. While the congressman insists he has done nothing wrong, the behavior certainly is unseemly and it raises questions about why we allow our elected officials to maintain accounts like these.

Here is the Ledger’s description of what happened:

In June, U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st Dist.) and his family visited Edinburgh for a wedding — part of a larger European vacation. There, Andrews, his wife and two teenage daughters stayed at the Balmoral Hotel in the center of town, which bills itself as a “luxury hotel in the true sense of the word.” The price was indeed five-star: Two rooms for three nights cost $7,725.

Nor did they go to Scotland empty-handed. The family bought a $463 china set from Bloomingdale’s as a gift to the newlyweds.

In all, Andrews and his family spent more than $9,000 on the Edinburgh leg of the trip. Rather, his congressional campaign did.

The hotel, wedding gift, and several hundred more dollars for ground transportation, meals and petty cash came not from the family’s pockets, but from Andrews’ campaign fund, according to a Star-Ledger review of his campaign-finance-reports.

Andrews said the expense was legitimate because the wedding was for a donor
and volunteer adviser, allowing him to consider it a political event. Citing privacy concerns, he declined to identify the adviser, who he said helps his campaign with opposition research.

“We have legal advice, and before we make any expenditure like that we listen to legal advice,” said Andrews, pointing out that the rest of the European vacation, including airfare, was paid for with family funds. “We’re convinced this is an appropriate expenditure to thank and support someone who has given us a lot of time and effort.”

Interesting explanation on Andrews’ part, but how many of us can claim access to this kind of political slush fund?

And that’s the problem. There are thousands of politicians with the same kind of cash accounts, full of money given them by the rich and powerful as an incentive to do the bidding of the rich and powerful. It becomes pretty easy to comingle the money — campaign and personal activities becomes conflated and we end up with Camden County politicians taking trips to Ireland and calling them campaign-related.

That this kind of thing is legal is damning in and of itself.

• Send me an e-mail.Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

This decision was not unexpected, but it will present dramatic challenges for those of us who believe that the political system is awash in cash. The 5-4 decision, which found that a film essentially attacking Hillary Clinton as a danger to the nation, was protected speech and that provisions of federal election law that prevented its release violated the First Amendment.

“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

The issue is a thorny one. Money has overrun the system and squeezed out the voices of regular folks, but the McCain-Feingold restrictions on issue ads always has struck me as an infringment on the rights of political groups to speak on political issues.

Consider the flip test on this one: A group like MoveOn or some other liberal organization creates a documentary on George W. Bush that essentially is commentary and plays like a newspaper editorial critical of the then-president. The group wants to release the film to theaters in September or October of 2004 so that it can affect the campaign debate.

Should it be allowed? And what restrictions should be imposed? That is the crux here.

Certainly, this kind of communication should be disclosed, but should it be banned? And is it the best way to starve the system of the cash that is corrupting it?

I remain a proponent of public financing, which I believe is the best way to control this. But I doubt we’ll be hearing anyone in Washington go down this path. Instead, look for the political classes to look for some other way, far less effective (or constitutional) way to address the issue.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.