[From the Boston Daily Globe of April 16, 1955]

COSTS OF OFFICE

Americans have yet to devise a workable method of controlling campaign expenditures. It is known that radio and television are making campaigns increasingly costly, but it also is obvious that possession of a large fund gives a candidate an unfair advantage, against which poorer aspirants and causes find it difficult to compete.

Corrupt practices acts are usually unduly strict and absurdly easy to evade. A proposal of Senator Hennings, which is being considered by his committee in Washington, seeks to face the actual situation with a realistic approach.

It would raise from $3 million to $12 million the limit that could be spent by party national committees. It also would place a ceiling on subsidiary committees supporting candidates for Federal office, and would include primaries as well as election contests. In addition, the measure would provide penalties. This looks like the most promising effort in years to meet a problem that is chronic and disturbing.

[From the Denver Post of April 26, 1955]

SPENDING FREE-FOR-ALL

Federal laws which are supposed to limit campaign expenditures in Congressional elections are "inadequate and antediluvian," according to Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Jr. (Democrat) of Missouri. He says they are inadequate because they do not require full disclosure of all spending. And they are obsolete because they set unrealistic ceilings on what candidates and parties may spend.

The

Present laws do not apply to campaign spending in primary elections. limit on a Senate race is $10,000 or the amount obtained by multiplying by 3 cents the total number of votes cast for that office in the last general election, but not more than $25,000. On a race for the House, it is $2,500 or the sum obtained by the 3-cent formula, but not more than $5,000.

As these expenditure limits do not apply to the spending of political committees, other than national party committees and committees active in two or more States, they are virtually meaningless. Expenditure reports filed with Congress by the various candidates actually show only part, and sometimes a very small part, of the total actually spent in their behalf.

For example, consider the 1954 Senatorial election in Oregon. Dick Neuberger (Democrat), who was elected reported $84,004.13 spent by himself and 3 committees which supported him. Senator Guy Cordon (Republican) reported that he spent nothing but that the "Cordon for United States Senator committee" filed a report of its expenditures in Oregon as required by State law.

Congressional Quarterly, after checking with the Oregon secretary of state, found that 30 committees and 4 individuals spent $141,264.01 in Cordon's behalf, and that Neuberger's total from 10 committees and 4 individuals was $87,652.64. In other words, the Oregon senatorial race cost about $228,000. That was nearly double the total reported to Congress for any Senate race.

The Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections, which Hennings heads, has started hearings on a bill he introduced to reform the campaign expenditures laws. His measure would cover primary as well as general election campaign spending. It would jump the present $3 million limit on national party political committee spending to $12 million. It would boost the senatorial limit to $250,000, but that of House candidates to $25,000. And it would include in these limits all spending by all committees in behalf of any candidate.

Now that Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $7,500 a year, competition for House and Senate seats is likely to be keener. But attempting to control the campaign spending of groups which are formed to support various candidates without their consent or approval is easier said than done. The appetite for public office is too keen and the stakes involved are too high to expect statutory disciplines to have much restraining effect on candidates and others who anticipate protection or profit from their man's victory.

[From the Christian Science Monitor of April 11, 1955]

HORSE AND BUGGY LAWS UNDER STUDY-CONGRESS STARTS TO DIG INTO CAMPAIGN COSTS

(By William H. Stringer)

WASHINGTON.-A congressional committee is launching what promises to be a determined, documented, and opinion-rousing scrutiny of Federal laws governing political campaign spending.

By admission of almost everybody, these laws are straight from the "horse and buggy era." With the advent of costly television campaigns, with the thousand loopholes in the laws, there is, as ex-Senator Guy Gillette succinctly declares, "No control at all" on election spending.

Nobody really knows how astronomically high campaign expenditures rise in the elections for Senate, House, and the President.

FIRST WITNESSES

So the Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections is holding hearings, beginning April 12, at which Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Butler and Republican National Committee Chairman Leonard Hall will be the leadoff witnesses. An impressive roster of political scientists, lawyers, labor leaders, businessmen, and representatives of the newspaper, radio, and TV media will testify.

Able, energetic Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Democrat, of Missouri, who chairmans this subcommittee, terms present election laws-including major portions of the Hatch Act of 1939 and the Corrupt Practices Act of 1925—“unrealistic, inadequate, and antediluvian." Senator Hennings has his own bill for overhauling the rules.

What is the matter with the election laws?

Well, they set a limit of $3 million on the campaign expenditures of any "political committee." And they declare that individuals may contribute no more than $5,000 apiece. This means that the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee cannot list expenditures above $3 million apiece in any election.

Obviously, when it is estimated that television costs in the 1952 election alone cost over $5 million, the money had to come from somewhere else. The difference was covered by voluntary organizations-there is no limitation on the number of "committees." That is one of the "loopholes" in the law.

COMMITTEES GALORE

So there have been "Lawyers for Dewey" committees and "Red-Headed Men for Roosevelt" committees each claiming the right to spend $3 million.

Similar loopholes lift the lid on individual contributions. A rich contributor himself can send only $5,000 to the national committee, but he can also send $5,000 to each State committee, and his wife, son, brother, and great uncle can also contribute $5,000 apiece.

Moreover, the laws do not attempt to cover primaries, which in some Southern States are the determinative elections.

HIGHER LIMIT

Senator Hennings proposes a number of reforms. He would include primary costs in the totals. He would require congressional accounting from all committees active in campaigns for Federal office, not merely from those (as the law now reads) which operate in two or more States. He would require, before anybody could contribute to anybody's campaign, that the candidate give written authority for the contribution.

Most important, the present totally unrealistic spending limitation of $3 million would be revised upward for national political committees to approximately $12 million, using an elastic formula keyed to the voting turnout in the last previous election.

By a similar formula, the amount a Congressman might spend would be upped from $5,000 to $25,000 under certain conditions, and a Senator's ceiling would rise from the present peak of $25,000 to as high as $250,000.

This is not the first time Congress has turned the spotlight on election spending. In 1952 a House committee headed by Representative Hale Boggs, Democrat, of Louisiana called witnesses and heard testimony. At that time Mr. Boggs was saying:

"The recent campaign added jet stops to the whistle stops and expensive TV rhetoric to the fireside chats. The enactors of laws which were passed in 1925 and 1939 could not possibly have foreseen these drastic changes in campaign techniques and the alarming costs of these techniques."

Mr. Boggs set the cost of the 1952 national campaign at somewhere between $50 million and $100 million. A 48-State survey undertaken by the New York Times found the 1952 expenditures to be at least $32 million-this total gleaned from official reports and known contributions.

Yet, by comparison, the electioneering costs which were required to be reported under the election laws amounted to only $17,500,000 for the presidential race and $5,600,000 for the congressional contests, according to the Congressional Quarterly. The discrepancy is obviously vast.

The Hennings bill is virtually assured a favorable committee report. Whether spending reform will win out depends on the pressures generated. The Democrats, who see their richer Republican rivals going into future campaign armed with larger campaign funds than they are able to muster, have an obvious special incentive. But members of both parties agree present laws are obsolete. The reformers want to equalize campaign expenditures, put the spotlight of publicity on splurges, and reduce spending sufficiently so that a man does not have to be wealthy, or even well connected with a labor union, to run for Congress.

[From the Washington Post and Times Herald of April 12, 1955]
EXPENSE OF CAMPAIGNS

Senator Hennings' attempt to tighten up the Federal election laws merits the most thoughtful support from his colleagues and the public. The existing laws are so unrealistic that they have become dead letters. For example, a candidate for the Senate is permitted to spend from $10,000 to $25,000 to get himself elected. Some candidates for the House are limited to $2,500. As Senator Hennings has pointed out, these are truly ridiculous provisions. In these days of television, radio and air travel, any candidate who insists on getting his case before the people must violate the law.

The Hennings bill would allow a candidate for the Senate or for Representative-at-large to spend $50,000 and other candidates for the House to spend $12,500. These amounts could be increased, however, up to a sum equal to 10 cents per vote cast in the last election, with cutoffs at $250,000 for senatorial candidates and $25,000 for House candidates. The spending limitation on national committees would be lifted from $3 million to approximately $12 million under a formula allowing 20 cents per vote cast for all presidential candidates in any one of the last three previous elections. The real question is whether these limits are realistic for the years ahead.

Campaigns today without television are unthinkable, and television has proved to be very costly. Even in 1950 the Ohio senatorial campaign cost more than a million dollars. With increasing use of mass communications media, campaign expenses are certain to rise in the next decade, and Congress would certainly not want to say that candidates for the highest offices in the land should not use the most effective means of presenting their views.

Expensive campaigns have been generally deplored because of the danger that money would be used improperly to influence voters. Bribery and buying of votes will always be evils whether they come high or low. But the same cannot be said of expenditures to acquaint the people with the personalities, the views and the records of the candidates. Expenditures of this sort are an asset to representative government so long as the funds used do not place the elected officials under obligation to special interests.

While liberalizing cost ceilings, the Hennings bill would also tighten up reporting and accounting procedures so as to minimize the danger of special interest contributions and corrupt use of political funds. The bill would apply to primaries as well as final elections. Every political committee working for a candidate for Federal office would have to report receipts and expenditures. Even individuals spending more than $100 for the benefit of a candidate would have

to report their contributions. In an effort to compel a central accounting by the groups working for each candidate, committees would be forbidden to accept contributions or to spend for political purposes without authorization from the candidate.

It is by no means certain that these provisions would close all the loopholes in the present law or that all of them would pass the test of constitutionality. But the Hennings bill appears to be the best approach yet made to this very important problem. Certainly the hearings on it should be extensive and thorough. Congress should then pass a bill that will throw a maximum of light upon where political funds come from and where they go, while keeping the door open to adequate financing of means to keep the people informed on political issues.

[From the Toledo (Ohio) Blade of April 15, 1955]

WATCHING THE $100 MILLION

One of the most horse-and-buggyish laws on Federal books today tries to halter national political campaign expenditures. Its latest revision, the Hatch Act of 1940, was found so feeble when first tested that its own sponsor pleaded for its repeal. Now Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri has introduced a bill which would make sense out of legislation that has become a laughingstock among politicians.

Present law limits a candidate's campaign expenditures for the United States Senate to $25,000. Former Senator Robert A. Taft admitted campaign activities on his behalf in 1950 probably cost between $600,000 and $700,000.

The law limits expenditures by a national political committee to $3 million. The last Presidential campaign cost both parties something like $75 million or $85 million, and estimates are that in 1956 the outlay will top the $100 million mark.

The law limits individual contributions toward a Federal candidate or a national committee to $5,000. Yet individuals have been known to shell out as much as $125,000 to a political party during a single campaign.

The trouble with existing law is threefold. It tries to place ridiculously low limits on campaign expenditures at a time when costs-particularly in the age of television-are necessarily high. It does not effectively regulate total party or candidate expenditures because so many political, private, and "nonpolitical" organizations spring up to do battle for their favorites. It does not demand adequate accounting and publicity for money which is spent.

Senator Hennings proposes a formula which would raise national committee spending to a current maximum of about $12 million. He would permit Senators in the more populous States to spend up to $250,000. Similarly, some Representatives could legally spend up to $25,000, five times as much as at present.

These or similar proposals may go through, since parties and candidates have nothing to lose (in most cases) and something to gain by them. But other reforms which are considerably more important will certainly be fought by those with a stake in keeping the people in the dark.

Under the Hennings' bill, every political committee which works for a candidate for Federal office would have to report how much it spent and where the money came from. Individuals spending over $100 would have to report, also. And no committee could receive or spend money for political purposes without the approval of the candidate.

Provisions such as these would let the public know a lot more about that $100 million due to be spent in 1956. They would not tell the whole story, since this is an area which rivals the income tax as a stimulus to circumvention. But if most of the information required by the bill were made public before elections, parties and voters alike would do their job with more discretion.

[From the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch of April 15, 1955]
HIGH COST OF RUNNING

Filled with recollections of campaigning against a better-financed opposition. Oregon's Senator Richard L. Neuberger is warning of new difficulties in the high

cost of reaching public office. His concern is with the relatively short Presidential campaign implied by the lateness of the Republican nominating convention in San Francisco.

Short campaigns generally have been regarded as desirable. A few weeks of intensive effort ought to be enough to explore issues and to examine candidates. Senator Neuberger points out, however, that the picture has been changed by money and television. With far more funds for the buying of radio and TV time, he says, the one party might sweep to a 1956 victory over the other in a political blitzkrieg.

Candidates of both major parties ought to have roughly the same opportunities to reach the same voters. Here no precedent should be seen in the story of David and Goliath.

This is one point on which European democracy is ahead of ours. The cost of filling an office is regarded as part of the cost of government. So with varying safeguards against abuse, the Public Treasury allots funds for candidates, expenses. American customs are so different and American campaigns are so extensive that the adoption of this principle seems unlikely.

Yet as Senator Neuberger now suggests and as others have suggested before him, it might find a limited application-and just in this new and costly field of radio and television campaigning. The air waves are public property. Private interests are licensed to use them for the public good. So Congress could require all radio and TV stations to set aside time for campaign appeals in accordance with a fair formula.

But if even this seems too radical, there is a principle which Congress has adopted and which it is being asked to make more realistic. This is putting a ceiling on campaign expenditures and disclosing the sources of campaign funds. The present ceilings are unrealistically low, but it is the easiest thing in the world to top them-and without any legal liability. Under these circumstances, money can become a major factor in deciding an election.

A safeguard, however, is readily available. It is the adoption of Senate bill 636, introduced by Senator Hennings, of Missouri. This offers a formula for reasonable ceilings. It recognizes present-day costs, yet would keep one party from having an insurmountable money advantage. Further, it assures full publicity-twice before election day-for all contributions so that if money is to play a role it must do so openly. The Hennings' plan would advise the voter of the sources of campaign money and enable him to form an opinion of its implications.

Here is a proposal which is simple and fair, and which introduces no new principles into American campaign financing. Since Senator Neuberger is by no means the only man in Washington apprehensive on this score, will Congress take advantage of a nonelection year to control what could become an open scandal and-what's worse-a threat to true democracy?

[From the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times of April 16, 1955]

BETTER CAMPAIGN SPENDING LAWS HAVE ONE GOAL: BETTER GOVERNMENT

Election campaigns in Florida and the Nation may cost less as the result of proposals now before the legislature in Tallahassee and Congress in Washington. At least, if the proposed laws are enacted, the State and Nation will have a more complete and accurate idea of what is being spent to elect Congressmen.

FLORIDA PROPOSALS

Two proposals at Tallahassee serve to strengthen the now-famous Florida who-gave-it-who-got-it law, passed by the 1951 legislature and based on a series of Times articles highlighting the high cost of running for office in Florida. One would make it mandatory that all contributions, including those of the candidate himself, be listed. The other would define enforcement powers in event of suspected violation. Both are needed to make better an already good law. The need for the contribution amendment was exposed in the 1954 congressional race when William C. Cramer, Republican, reported expenditures in excess of contributions.