PACs pay for the 'best Congress money can buy'

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The Best Congress Money Can Buy, by Philip M.

Stern. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. 321 pp. $18.95.

Although "The Best Congress Money Can Buy" is a padded and repetitious book (it would have been greatly improved by being considerably cut and properly organized), it contains much useful information about how members of Congress are dependent on big business.

The chief financial means members of Congress use to run for office-and the average senator raises almost $10,000 a week every week for his (or her) entire six-year term to fund the next electoral campaign—is contributions from Political Action Committees (PACs). Most of this money comes from PACs that have been formed by In 1986 about half of the members of the House of Representatives got more than 50 percent of their campaign funds—many of them 60 percent to 80 percent-from PACs outside their congressional districts; 82 percent got more than 30 percent of their campaign funds from such Those who get the most PAC money are members of committees-popularly known as "PAC heavens"-that write legislation affecting important industries. Thus Banking Committee Chairman Ferdnand St. Germain got nearly a third of a million dollars from banks and other financial institutions over a period of eight years. It may more properly be said that he is the representative of the An example is a vote in 1979 on a bill to contain the banking industry more than of his district in Rhode Island.

soaring costs of hospital stays that, it was estimated, would have saved consumers and the government about $10 billion a year. Opposed by the American Medical PACs are really concerned with buying influence, not winning elections. They gave more than $23 million in Of those who from 1977 through 1980 received from the 1986 to House candidates who were sure winners—$8.5 AMA more than $15,000, 100 percent voted against the bill; of those who received $10,000 to $15,000, 95 percent voted against it; of those who received $2500 to $5000, 80 percent voted against it; of those who received less than $2500, 38 percent voted against it; of those who received nothing, 37 percent voted against it. Well-placed dollars million to those who had no major-party opponents and $14.8 million to those who had won their previous four elections by better than three-to-one margins. In so doing, they weren't betting on a race horse; they were rewarding a Besides business PACs, there are labor unions PACs and, much fewer, "ideological" PACs, conservative and Because they were concerned with buying influence from "liberal." Ironically, PACs were introduced by organized office-holders, PACs formed by corporations and trade labor, but business PACs now contribute three times as associations gave 90 percent of their contributions to incumbents. This helped incumbents to outspend their The labor bureaucrats, playing the same game as the challengers by three to one and no doubt had more than a capitalists with their members' money, are the capitalists' little to do with the fact that 98 percent of the incumbents partners more often than not. The same Congressman won. Once you get in and go along with the game, you are James J. Howard, Chairman of the House Public Works Baltimore Cleveland Minnoapolis P.O. Box 16005 P.O. Box 6151 P.O. Box 14087 P.O. Box 1046 GMF Now York Baltimore, MD 21218 Boston Boston, MA 02205 (617) 497-0230 Chicago P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657 (312) 327-5752 Cincinnati P.O. Box 21015 Cincinnati, OH 45219 (513) 272-2596 corporations and trade associations. Dear editor, I recently came across a copy of your paper at a friend's house and was most impressed. I had heard of it before. I'm a member of the Polish Socialist Party-Democratic Revolution (Left Current). It's impossible to obtain your paper here in Poland. I would be very interested in obtaining a subscription.

G.P., Warsaw, Poland Unionist Dear editor, I am interested in your publication. I would appreciate it very much and it would be most useful to Cleveland, OH 44101 (216) 429-2167 Detroit P.O. Box 32546 Detroit, MI 48232 Los Angeles P.O. Box 862014 Los Angeles, CA 90086-2014 (213) 250-4608 For information in other cities call 415-821-0458.

PACs are interested. yield huge dividends. much as labor. me in my work and in ordering subscriptions if you would send me information, including subscription rates and sample copies.

Norman Lederer, Education Director, District 65, UAW, Woodbridge, N.J.

Dear editor, Charles Olney Cornell, 78, one of the devoted American guards of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1939-1940, died Jan. 1, 1989, in San Mateo, Calif., of leukemia after a two-week illness. He was born March 14, 1911, in Cochise, Ariz. He leaves Dinkeytown Station Minneapolis, MN 55414 P.O. Box 20209 Ca. Finance 693 Columbus Ave.

New York, N.Y. 10025 San Francisco 3435 Army St., Suite 308 San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 821-0458 Santa Barbara P.O. Box 90644 Santa Barbara, CA 93190 (805) 962-4011 What do PACs get for their money? Stern has a number of charts showing the very high correlation between campaign contributions and votes on bills in which the Association, it was defeated by 234 to 166. Labor bureaucrats and big business his widow, Betty, and their son and daughter.

Cornell was present at Trotsky's Avenida Viena residence in Coyoacan during the attempted assassination of Trotsky by Communist Party thugs led by the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in May 1940. On Aug. 20, 1940, Trotsky was murdered by a GPU agent later awarded the Order of The Red Flag by Moscow.

Cornell participated in Socialist Workers Party activities in New York City subsequent to his stay with Trotsky. He described his life with Trotsky in a colorful article "With Trotsky in Mexico," published in the Fourth International magazine of August 1940.

After being engaged in real-estate development and home building in Connecticut and from 1978 to 1988 in Prescott, Ariz., he retired and moved to San Mateo. Those who knew him will remember him respectfully and fondly.

A reader, Los Angeles, Calif.

Pro-choice

Dear editor, Pro-choice activists picketed the offices of Archbishop Roger M.

Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese on June 15 to protest Mahony's support of Operation Rescue (OR) demonstrators as well as his letters to California Catholic legislators warning them that good Calholics must be against abortion.

the Teamsters Union.

funds.

Congress itself has set. estate taxes. own PAC, Campaign America. who are bought—in turn buy others. Rogers over 60 years ago.

democracy.

Some of the signs read "Catholics for Choice" and "Curb your Dogma." Demonstrators chanted, "Not the decide their fate. "State, women will Archbishop Mahony had arrived at the Los Angeles Midland Medical Clinic on June 10 as police were arresting the last of the anti-abortion protesters who barred the clinic entrance. He declared that the OR people were people of "great commitment and courage" and said, "I commend them very highly."

The June 15 protest was sponsored by the coalition of organizations and pro-choice activists which has been defending the clinics of the Los Angeles area against Operation Rescue.

David Cooper, Los Angeles, Calif.

Dear editor, Despite a history of callous indifference toward safety and environmental protection, the Department of Energy (DOE) seems hellbent on opening a nuclear-waste storage facility near Carlsbad, N.M.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) currently under construction by the Westinghouse Corporation is designed to be an underground repository for the disposal of radioactive wastes generated by nuclearweapons production operations.

DOE is pushing to open WIPP in September, or at the latest, February 1990. The DOE plans to send more than 34,000 truckloads of plutoSOCIALIST ACTIC Pointing the finger brothers and their wives. Of course, it passed. nium-contaminated "hot trash" in inadequately tested containers through major population centers based on unrealistically optimistic assumptions regarding the potential for accidents and the release of radioactivity.

The DOE's and Westinghouse Corporation's assurance in regard to the "best technology" and "surefire contingency plans" ring hollow in light of the recent tragic loss of life on the U.S.S. Iowa and the environmental disaster at Valdez Harbor. Only this time, an "accident" involving nuclear waste may render the area involved uninhabitable for as many as 10,000 years.

Brine has been found to be seeping into the storage facility. In addition, there is a large body of pressurized brine located directly beneath the site. The water in the WIPP could mix with wastes to form a "radioactive slurry," which could contaminate the water table flowing directly into the Rio Grande.

Common sense demands an immediate halt to the production of nuclear weapons and redirecting the nation's resources towards socially useful and environmentally sound investments which will satisfy human needs rather than the greed of corporations like Westinghouse.

Sean Padilla, El Paso, Tex.

We welcome letters from our readers. Please keep them brief. Where necessary, for space, they will be abridged.

V JULY 1989 2:

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