Campaign financing: the 'good news' is all wrong.

• Author: Roeder, Edward

We still want to believe the promise Madison made in the heat of the 1787-88 campaign for ratification of the federal Constitution. We are eager for evidence that voters retain some control over their elected representatives, that the political action committees don't call all the shots on Capitol Hill.

the press is not immune to this hopeful attitude. In May, the "Federal Triangle" report in The Washington Post led with this optimistic item:

"Senate and House candidates spen $374 million during the 1983-84 election cycle, a 9.3 percent jump over the previous election but considerably less of an increase than in the past, the Federal Election Commission reported yesterday." (Emphasis added.)

The brief article that followed clearly implied that the influence of money in Congressional elections is lessening, or at least the advantages of being wealthy or being sponsored by well-heeled interest groups are growing at a slower rate.

The sad fact is, however, that money was more important than ever before in '84.

Federal electrion officials and most of the press emphasized the wrong numbers in analyzing the last election. The only reduction in money in politics was a drop in the amounts challengers were able to raise. The amounts winners raised and spent shot up, meaning that it cost a lot more to get elected. Incumbents in particular relied on vastly increased campaign chests, with a much higher proportion of that money coming from PACs. Far from receding, the special interests have simply gotten more efficient in targeting candidates they wish to have stay in office.

What the FEC emphasized-and the Post amplified--about the '84 election was that total spending by all candidates fro the House of Representatives dropped by 0.2 percent, while total spending by all Senate candidates rose by 23.1 percent, resulting in an overall spending increase of "only" 9.3 percent over 1982. "By comparison," the Post reported, "[total] spending jumped 43 percent from 1980 to 1982 and 23 percent from 1978 to 1980."

But the problem is that it doesn't matter much what it costs to lose a Congressional campaign. What matters is how much it takes to win. That sets the price of admission and indicates how much leverage can be gained by the groups that have money to give away.

On average, senators elected in 1984 raised more than $3 million, 41 percent more than in 1982. But unlike the House, where all 435 seats are up for grabs every two years, different states had...