Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 1, 1995                   TAG: 9508010044
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MONEY, MONEY MONEY, MONEY

In accepting $100,000 from Edward and Peter Via, the Republican challengers for two Roanoke Valley seats in the House of Delegates acted within the spirit and the letter of state campaign-finance rules.

Which goes to show the weakness of Virginia's campaign-finance rules. These rules reflect, it's worth pointing out, the lack of campaign-reform will of a General Assembly controlled for decades by Democrats.

Indeed, notwithstanding their efforts to read something sinister into this episode, Democrats have little cause to make a fuss over the Vias' contributions. The Allen PAC, the Campaign for Honest Change (oh, those names!), rightly returned the money because the privacy-conscious Vias wanted it routed specifically to two Roanoke Valley House candidates: Trixie Averill, running against Democratic Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, and Newell Falkinburg, challenging Democratic Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum.

The money, $25,000 per candidate per brother, had to be given directly to the individual campaigns.

This is a case where a reform, albeit modest, had its intended effect. PACs can keep confidential their list of contributors, but aren't allowed to dispense the money to individual campaigns, which must disclose contributors' identity. Without this rule, Averill and Falkinburg could have collected the money (about half of each candidate's campaign funds raised to date) without the public's being any the wiser.

Campaign reforms, in other words, can work. They can, that is, when they are enacted. In Virginia, this doesn't happen often.

Aside from disclosure and reporting rules, virtually anything goes in nonfederal elections in the Old Dominion. There are no limits on individual contributions, no restrictions on corporate gifts, no ceilings on any candidate's spending.

The Via brothers may well have had nothing in mind but civic betterment; if so, they are unusual campaign contributors. Most gifts, particularly sizable ones, have narrower, more concrete purposes behind them. The idea is to make the donee in some way to some degree beholden to the donor, or in some fashion to buy protection for the donor from the donee. Lost in the shuffle, of course, is the public interest.

The shuffling is bipartisan. It is unknown, if doubtful, whether Cranwell or Woodrum would turn down legal offers of $50,000 campaign gifts. It is beyond dispute that Democratic majorities in the state legislature have failed to produce rules constraining the prostitution of government.

Meanwhile, campaign spending in Virginia escalates, each election cycle making the previous one look cheap. Legislative candidates this year will far outspend those of 1993, who far outspent those of 1991, and so forth.

Granted, outspending one's opponent is no guarantee of victory. But that is beside the point. What counts is the high value being placed by candidates and contributors on the acquisition and expenditure of campaign dollars. At the very least, Virginia ought to limit the size of such gifts.