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 A Culture of Corruption
Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics
 by Bill Moyers Thursday, April 6, 2006 the Washington Spectator 
 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0406-29.htm
 
  
 Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out
 from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of
 mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we
 cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may
 support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for
 all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a
 secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no 
government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations.
 Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut regular people 
out of any meaningful participation in democracy. Less than one-half of
 one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or
 more to a federal candidate in 2004. When the average cost of winning
 a seat in the House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we can
 no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's House." Congress
 belongs to the highest bidder.
 At the same time that the cost of getting elected is exploding beyond
 the reach of ordinary people, the business of influencing our elected
 representatives has become a growth industry. Since President Bush 
was elected the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more 
than doubled. That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year: 65
 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent per month by
 special interests wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is
 now nearly $200 million. Per month.
 Numbers don't tell the whole story. With pro-corporate officials
 running both the executive and legislative branches, lobbying that 
was once reactive has sallied forth to buy huge chunks of public policy.
 One example: In 2004 the computer maker Hewlett-Packard sought
 Republican-backed legislation that would enable it to bring back to
 the United States, at a dramatically lowered tax rate, as much as
 $14.5 billion in profits from foreign subsidiaries. The company 
nearly doubled its budget for contract lobbyists and took on an elite
 lobbying firm as its Washington arm. Presto! The legislation passed.
 The company's director of government affairs was quite candid: "We're
 trying to take advantage of the fact that Republicans control the
 House, the Senate, and the White House."
 GREED WITHOUT APOLOGIES—I am an equal opportunity muckraker. Anyone
 who saw the documentary my team and I produced on the illegal
 fund-raising for Bill Clinton's re-election knows I am no fan of the
 Democratic money-machine that helped tear away the party from 
whatever roots it had in the struggles of working people. But today the
 Republicans own the government lock, stock, and barrel. And they have
 turned their self-proclaimed revolution into a cash cow.
 Look back at the bulk of legislation passed by Congress in the past
 decade: an energy bill that gives oil companies huge tax breaks at 
the same time that ExxonMobil has just posted $36.13 billion in profits
 and our gasoline and home heating bills are at an all-time high; a
 bankruptcy "reform" bill written by credit card companies to make it
 harder for poor debtors to escape the burdens of divorce or medical
 catastrophe; the deregulation of the banking, securities and 
insurance sectors, which brought on rampant corporate malfeasance and greed and
 the destruction of the retirement plans of millions of small
 investors; the deregulation of the telecommunications sector, which
 led to cable industry price-gouging and an undermining of news
 coverage; protection for rampant overpricing of pharmaceutical drugs;
 and the blocking of even the mildest attempt to prevent American
 corporations from dodging an estimated $50 billion in annual taxes by
 opening a P.O. box in an off-shore tax haven like the Cayman Islands.
 In every case the results were produced by rivers of cash flowing to
 favored politicians from interests whose return on their investment
 put Wall Street equities to shame. This happens because our public
 representatives need huge sums to finance their campaigns, especially
 to pay for television advertising. The masters of the money game have
 taken advantage of that weakness in our democracy to turn our
 elections into auctions.
 A WALK DOWN K STREET—It's the Wall Street of lobbying, the address of
 many of Washington's biggest lobbying firms. The "K Street
 Project"—the most successful shakedown operation since the first
 Gilded Age—was the brainchild of Representative Tom DeLay and Grover
 Norquist, the right-wing strategist who famously said that his goal 
is to shrink government so that it can be "drowned in a bathtub" (when,
 finally, it will be too impotent to protect democracy from plunder 
and powerless citizens from the rapacity of corporate power). For his
 part, Tom DeLay ran a pest exterminating business in Sugar Land,
 Texas, where he hated government regulators who dared to tell him 
that some of the pesticides he used were dangerous. He got himself elected
 to the Texas legislature at a time when the Republicans were becoming
 the majority in the once-solid Democratic South, and early in his new
 career "Hot Tub Tom," as he was known in Austin, became a born-again
 Christian.
 In addition to finding Jesus, Tom DeLay discovered the power of money
 to drive his career. By raising more than $2 million from lobbyists
 and business groups and distributing it to dozens of Republican
 candidates in 1994, the year of the Republican breakthrough in the
 House, DeLay bought the loyalty of many freshmen legislators who
 helped elect him Majority Whip, the House's number three man.
 He wasted no time in inviting lobbyists to write the Republican
 agenda. Their first priority was "Project Relief"—"relief" from labor
 standards that protected workers from the physical injuries of
 repetitive work, "relief" from tougher rules on meat inspection,
 "relief" from effective monitoring of hazardous air pollutants. 
Scores of companies were soon adding one juicy and expensive tidbit after
 another. On the eve of the debate, according to Michael Weisskopf and
 David Maraniss of the Washington Post, 20 major corporate groups
 advised lawmakers that "this was a key vote, one that would be
 considered in future campaign contributions."
 The Machine was off and running. As then-Speaker of the House Newt
 Gingrich famously told the lobbyists: "If you are going to play in 
our revolution, you have to live by our rules." The rules were simple
 enough. Contribute to Republicans only. Hire only Republicans as
 lobbyists (priority preference: DeLay's own staff). Centralize the
 power to write legislation in the hands of the party bosses (assisted
 by hovering lobbyists). Allow no amendments. Produce bills in secret.
 Permit members no time to read them. Pass important bills late at
 night. Avoid compromise by banning Democrats from conference
 committees. Give lobbyists and campaign contributors what they want.
 While examples abound of how the rules stacked the deck, consider 
one: the Medicare prescription coverage bill. Enacted after midnight, its
 hundreds and hundreds of pages unintelligible to anyone but 
lobbyists, the legislation enriched the pharmaceutical and insurance companies
 while giving senior citizens and taxpayers the shaft.
 THE MONEY MAN—DeLay, who had announced that God had chosen him to
 return American to a "biblical worldview," needed help to sustain the
 cash flow necessary for spreading the Gospel of Greed. He found it in
 a fellow right-wing ideologue named Jack Abramoff, who personified 
the K-Street money-machine of which DeLay, with the blessing of his
 party's leaders, was the major-domo. It was Abramoff who helped DeLay
 raise those millions of dollars from campaign donors to create the
 base for an empire of corruption.
 Abramoff has now pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy
 to bribe public officials. It's a spectacular fall for a man whose
 rise to power began in his school days with his election as chairman
 of the College Republicans. Despite its innocuous name, the
 organization became a political attack machine for the far right and 
a launching pad for younger conservatives on the make.
 "Our job," Abramoff, then 22 years old, wrote after his first visit 
to the Reagan White House, "is to remove liberals from power 
permanently.
 . . ." (He would later acknowledge that his agenda also included
 moving K Street closer to the Republican Party.) Karl Rove had once
 held the same job as chairman. So did Grover Norquist, who ran
 Abramoff's campaign. A youthful $200-a-month intern named Ralph Reed
 was at their side. These were the rising young stars of the
 conservative movement who came to town to lead a revolution and 
stayed to run a racket.
 CASINO ROYALE—Abramoff made his name, so to speak, representing 
Indian tribes and their gambling interests. As his partner he hired a DeLay
 crony named Michael Scanlon. Together they would bilk half a dozen
 tribes who hired them to protect their gambling interests from
 competition. What the two men had to offer, of course, was their
 connections to the Republican power structure, including members of
 Congress, friends at the White House (Abramoff's personal assistant
 became the personal assistant of Karl Rove), Christian Right 
activists like Reed, and right-wing ideologues like Norquist. The network 
hummed smoothly for its inside traders—as, for example, when two lobbying
 clients of Abramoff paid $25,000 to Norquist's organization, 
Americans for Tax Reform, for lunch at the White House and a meeting with
 President Bush in May 2001, according to the Texas Observer.
 In a scheme they called "Gimme Five." Abramoff would refer tribes to
 Scanlon for grassroots public-relations work, and Scanlon would then
 kick back about 50 percent to Abramoff, all without the tribes'
 knowledge. Before it was over, the tribes had paid the two lobbyists
 $82 million, much of it going directly into Abramoff's and Scanlon's
 pockets. And that doesn't count the thousands more that Abramoff
 directed the tribes to pay out in campaign contributions.
 Some of the money found its way into an outfit called the Council of
 Republicans for Environment Advocacy, founded by Gale Norton before
 she was appointed to run the Department of the Interior,
 which—surprise! surprise!—is the agency most responsible for Indian
 gaming rights. Some went to so-called charities, set up by Abramoff
 and DeLay, that filtered money for lavish trips for members of
 Congress and their staffs, as well as salaries for Congressional
 family members and DeLay's pet projects.
 And some of the money found its way to the Holy High Rollers of the
 Christian Right. Ralph Reed, for one, had his hand out. Reed had
 become the religious right's poster boy against gambling ("We believe
 gambling is a cancer on the American body politic," he had said). Now
 Abramoff and Scanlon would pay Reed some $4 million to help them
 protect their own gaming interests. His assignment was to whip up
 Christian opposition to gambling initiatives that could cut into the
 profits of Abramoff's clients.
 Reed enlisted some of the brightest stars in the Christian firmament
 in a ruse conducted on Abramoff's behalf: they would oppose gambling
 on religious and moral grounds in strategic places at decisive 
moments when competition threatened Abramoff's clients. Bogus Christian 
groups were part of the strategy. A gaggle of influential Baptist preachers 
in Texas danced to Reed's fiddling. Folks in Louisiana heard the voice of God 
on the radio—performed by Jerry Falwell and Pat
 Robertson—thundering against a riverboat gambling scheme that 
Abramoff feared would jeopardize the profits of a client. Reed even got James 
Dobson, whose nationwide radio "ministry" reaches millions of people (and whose 
videos helped Tom DeLay find Jesus) to deluge the Interior Department and White 
House with telephone calls from indignant
 Christians. Abramoff arranged for the Mississippi Choctaws, who were trying to
 stave off competition from other tribes, to contribute over $1 
million to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, which then passed the money
 along to the Alabama Christian Coalition and to another anti-gambling
 group Reed had duped into aiding the cause. It is unclear how much
 these Christian soldiers knew about the true purpose of their 
crusade, but Reed knew all along that his money was coming from Abramoff. The
 e-mails between the two men read like a modern version of Elmer 
Gantry.
 As reported by the Washington Post and National Journal, some of
 Abramoff's money from lobbying went to start a non-profit 
organization called the U.S. Family Network, founded with the help of a top aide 
to Tom DeLay while he was still in DeLay's employ (his salary at the 
time paid by—you guessed it—taxpayers). DeLay even wrote a fundraising
 letter in its behalf. The group announced that its purpose was to
 promote policies favorable for "families, the economic prosperity,
 social improvement, moral fitness, and general well being of the
 United States," and its fund-raising screeds warned that the American
 family "is being attacked from all sides: crime, drugs, pornography .
 . . and gambling." But its first donation came from the Mississippi
 Band of Choctaw Indians, followed by other Abramoff clients who
 couldn't care less about the professed moral agenda.
 The U.S. Family Network turns out to be another scam in the
 Abramoff-DeLay money laundering machine. Its money paid for attack 
ads on Democrats, bought a townhouse three blocks from DeLay's
 Congressional quarters, providing him with free office space where he
 could go to raise funds for the Machine, and awarded DeLay's wife a
 sizable salary.
 But that's the least of it. Working with Abramoff through a now
 defunct law firm in London and an obscure offshore company in the
 Bahamas, oil and gas executives from Russia used the U.S. Family
 Network to funnel money to influence Tom DeLay, then-majority leader
 of the House of Representatives. A Christian pastor recruited to 
serve as the titular president of the organization was told by DeLay's
 sidekick that $1 million was passed through from sources in Russia 
who wanted DeLay's support for legislation enabling the International
 Monetary Fund to bail out the faltering Russian economy without
 demanding new taxes on the country's energy industry. Lo and behold,
 there was Tom Delay, appearing on an obliging Fox News television
 show, arguing the Russian position. The rueful pastor who was the
 organization's nominal head said he was told, "This is the way things
 work in Washington."
 "REFORM" TALK FIZZLES—The Republican leaders would have us believe
 this is just a "lobbying scandal." They assume that if they pass a 
few minor reforms to put a little distance between the politician and the
 lobbyist, we will think everything is okay and they can go back to
 business as usual. Just look at Congressman John Boehner, elected to
 replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. He's been a full player 
in the K Street Project and DeLay's money machine. The top lobbyists in
 town frequent his office. He thinks nothing of cruising with them in
 the Caribbean or of hopping on corporate jets arranged by them. This
 is the man who ten years ago moved around the floor of the House—the
 "People's House"—handing out checks from tobacco executives.
 As for Tom Delay? He is under indictment in Texas for money 
Laundering and had to resign as Majority Leader. But just the other day 
the party bosses gave him a seat on the powerful House Appropriations 
Committee, where big contributors get their rewards. And—are you ready for
 this?—they put him on the subcommittee overseeing the budget of the
 Justice Department, which is investigating the Abramoff scandal,
 including Abramoff's connections to DeLay. I'm not making this up.
 It's business as usual. Rotten business as usual.
 I have touched on only a few of the astonishing details pouring out
 about the sacking of Washington. The corrupting power of money in
 politics is an old story. This time is different, because in a
 one-party government the opposition is impotent and the corporate
 media, with a few notable exceptions, have bought into the notion 
that this is "just the way Washington works." Already the calls for reform
 are fading away.
 CLEAN ELECTIONS—You may say, "What can we do about it? These forces
 are too rich, too powerful, too entrenched to be defeated." Maybe. 
But if others had given up before us, blacks would still be three-fifths
 of a person, women wouldn't have the vote, workers couldn't organize,
 and children would still be working in the mines. It's time to fight
 again. These people in Washington have no right to be doing what they
 are doing. It's not their government, it's your government. They work
 for you, and if they let you down and sell you out, they should be
 fired. That goes for everyone, from the lowliest bureaucrat in town 
to the senior leaders of Congress on up to the president of the United
 States. The stakes are too high for us to give up.
 Fortunately, there is something we can do. A movement is gathering
 across the country that could restore democracy to a country run by
 money. It's the "clean money" campaign for the public funding of our
 elections. Maine led the way in 2000. Arizona followed suit. So have
 several municipalities, including Portland, Oregon, and Albuquerque,
 New Mexico. Races are more competitive and attract a more diverse
 group of candidates.
 No sooner had Janet Napolitano been elected governor of Arizona under
 the state's public financing program than she instituted reforms
 establishing low-cost prescription drug subsidies for seniors. There
 have also been advances in Maine in providing low-cost prescription
 drugs for residents. Why? Because the politicians write the
 legislation, not the lobbyists.
 Look what happened in Connecticut last year, a state rocked by
 multiple political scandals. People decided to break the link between
 big donors and public officials. By December the legislature had
 passed clean-money reform, banning campaign contributions from
 lobbyists and state contractors. Connecticut is the first state where
 the legislature and governor have approved full public funding for
 their own races. In thirty other states clean-money campaigns are 
also forming. (You can find out more about the movement at the website of
 Public Campaign.)
 While public funding won't solve all the problems—the Abramoffs and
 DeLays of the world will always find ways to abuse the public 
trust—it would go a long way toward restoring the hope of government "of, by,
 and for the people." Even some business lobbyists are having second
 thoughts. Business Week recently quoted one of them as saying: "As a
 conservative, I've always opposed government involvement. But it 
seems to me the real answer is federal financing of Congressional 
elections."
 Just think: For about $10 per taxpayer, per year, we, the people,
 could buy back our politicians in Congress and the White House with
 full public funding. But time is running out. Unless we offer
 qualified candidates a different source of campaign funding with
 clean, disinterested and accountable public money, the selling of
 America will go on, and we will wake up one day in a country we no
 longer recognize.
 
 Bill Moyers is a broadcast journalist and former host the PBS program
 NOW With Bill Moyers. Moyers also serves as president of the Schumann
 Center for Media and Democracy.