Last week, the Center for Public Integrity ("CPI") released a report, Passing the Bucks, in which it accuses House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) of "exploiting" a "loophole" in federal law to raise funds for other Democratic candidates. What nefarious activity has Rep. Hoyer done?
It seems that Majority Leader Hoyer has done something that CPI admits is legal, but which they obviously think ought to be stopped. What is it he has done? Well, it appears that he used his perfectly legal Leadership PAC to "accept many small contributions designated for particular candidates and forward them to those campaigns." Are you alarmed yet? Is there no end to the scandal?
The Center for Public Integrity wants you to be alarmed. At least, that’s the only reason we can figure for releasing this non-path breaking report at all, let alone larding it with phrases such as "loophole," "sidestepped statutory limits," "conduit," "pass through," and (quoting former Representative Joe Hefley (R-Colo.)), "a disgrace and a scandal just waiting to break open."
Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center – who seems to be the new quote machine for the "reform" community, chimes in with the invariable expression of "concern." Says Ryan, "It’s a problem; there is that threat of corruption that campaign limits serve to guard against." According to the CPI report, Mr Ryan, "is equally concerned when a member of Congress acts as a bundler. ‘I think the threat of corruption is very similar in both scenarios.’"
In other words, according to Mr. Ryan, Congressmen are at risk of being "corrupted" by other congressmen. Now, we’ve never shared the reform communities panic about bundling – this ability to collect lots of small checks and forward them to a candidate. It appears to be rooted in the deeply held belief that campaigns can be run for free. Candidates cannot raise money in large amounts, because that is corrupting, and they cannot raise money in small amounts, because it takes too much time, and they can’t have others ("bundlers") raise money for them, because, supposedly, then they’ll be responsive to the people who volunteer their time to raise money, rather than to the news media, or staffers, or major employers in their district, or many others, including (and think this is what really bugs them) the "reform" community. And of course, the possibility that our representatives might actually do what they think is right is not to be considered within the realm of possibility, seeing as how we all know that they are "corrupt."
But if bundling is a problem at all, we had thought that the problem was candidates being in the thrall of bundlers, who might represent a client’s discrete interest that might not reflect what the public as a whole wants. Hoyer, by contrast, doesn’t have a client. Or, perhaps more accurately, his "client" is his constituency. How can Steny Hoyer "corrupt" over 200 Democratic House members?
The answer, apparently, is paranoia about money. Small contributions, in amounts that Congress has determined are not corrupting, are given to Hoyer with instructions to pass them on to particular candidates; Hoyer in turn gives those small contributions to those candidates; and those candidates turned congressmen now hop to Hoyer’s tune, who in turn hops to the tune of the people who gave him the money to give to the congressmen, or something like that. Pretty soon, you’ve got Democratic lawmakers actually being responsive to the wide array of groups, individuals, and organizations that voted Democratic. We’re getting pretty attenuated here from even the "appearance of corruption," let alone actual corruption.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the reformers define the "appearance of corruption" as whatever the most paranoid, irrational conspiracy theorist might think has some possibility of affecting an elected officials decision making process. But lawmakers are not monks, to be cloistered away from the people, having no contact with the outside world except a daily subscription to the New York Times and the occasional visit from one of the "people’s lobbyists" at Common Cause.
And if Steny Hoyer’s svengali-like presence actually moves Democratic congressmen to support the Democratic caucus agenda, well, we’re not terribly upset.
