Aides Discuss Fundraising Practices

The treasurer for the Dukakis campaign and a longtime Republican fundraiser each claimed that their party was taking the lead in bringing about much needed campaign finance reform at an Institute of Politics forum last night before about 100 people.

Accusing Political Action Committees (PACs) of corruption and Republicans of failing to recognize the need for greater reform, Dukakis Campaign Treasurer Robert Farmer said, "There's a reason people give money. There are abuses in this system...and it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out."

Farmer added that the Democrats have assuaged uneasiness about campaign money by refusing to accept PAC money in the race for the White House and voluntarily disclosing campaign finances this past August, an act which Farmer said the Republicans imitated.

Republican Finance Committee Executive Director Philip Smith claimed his party started the practice of voluntary disclosure. He added, however, that the move towards disclosure is a step in the right direction.

'Getting Worse'

Wall Street Journal reporter Brooks Jackson took the hardest line in the discussion, entitled "Campaign Finance: Money and Politics," blasting the campaign finance system as "utterly out of control" and "getting worse."

Characterizing political fundraising competition as having an "arms race mentality," Jackson said PAC money was a major cause of abuse. "We don't know where this money is coming from or where it is going," he said, adding that the system was slipping back to the time when there were "no limits whatsoever."

Defending donations by PACs, Vice President of Business-Industry PAC Bernadette Budde said that these private fundraising groups "represent an avenue for small givers" and claimed that they were essential to "getting somebody that they like elected or re-elected."

Chairman of the Federal Election Commission Thomas Josefiak expressed his concern with the commission's inability to regulate abuses in the system and called for Congress to change the laws by which the commission is bound. "The biggest problem is not with us," said Josefiak. "It is with the law. All we do is enforce the law as it is written."

L. Sandy Maisel, a government professor at Colby College and former visiting professor at Harvard, moderated the discussion.