Some honorable men in the Senate just don't seem to get it. They don't seem to understand how fundamentally our politics is corrupted by money. There is general agreement that it is time for campaign finance reform, but it seems we might just get some tinkering where a major overhaul is needed.

"I just don't see what the matter is,"said Senator Warren Rudman (R, NH) on a recent television panel discussion, "with a candidate for the Senate financing his campaign with a lot of little contributions, up to $1000, from individuals." He was speaking in support of a Republican proposal that would place no limit on the total amount of money a candidate could raise from individuals either within his state or around the country.

Sitting next to him was Senator John Kerry (D, MA), advocating a system of public financing for congressional elections like the one we have for presidential races. Both men agreed that the intrusion of special-interest PAC money can be corrupting. PAC money, they concurred, if it did not necessarily buy the special interest a Senator's support at least buys "access."

But with evidently sincere bewilderment, Senator Rudman turned to his colleague and asked, "Why should there be a limit on the number of small contributions from individuals?"
He didn't get the most essential answer then. SO let me offer an answer now.

The problem is not just the "money chase" that Senator Kerry spoke about in reply, though it is certainly true that the country would be better off if Senators did not have to spend a high proportion of their time in office raising money so that they can stay in office after the next election. And with no cap in total spending, the escalating cost of re-election will condemn us to electing part-time legislators and full-time fundraisers.

The real problem is much more fundamental than that. The real issue is justice in the distribution of power among citizens.

Would you agree, Senator Rudman, that the premise of our democracy is that each person is entitled to an equal role in the determination of the collective destiny of the nation? Would you agree that our sense of "justice for all" assumes that the poor person is as entitled to representation in the formulation of our laws as is the rich?

If you agree with these premises, then there is a simple test for any proposal for how campaigns should be financed: does a candidate with 1,000 wealthy supporters have an advantage over a candidate with 1,000 poor supporters? If the answer is yes, the system is unjust.

The present way our elections are financed builds just such injustice into our political system. This injustice would remain intact if the system were "reformed" along the lines the Republicans propose. All those $1,000 contributions from the "little people"! How many people in the inner city can express their support with a $1000 check? How many working families that are struggling to make ends meet can express even the most intense enthusiasm in such monetary terms?

So long as Senators need money to stay in office, Rudman's system provides more incentive for candidates to appeal to the rich, whose support can mean a lot, than to the poor, who can "only" vote. So long as the interests of those who have much are different from the interests of those who have little, the financing of our elections by private contributions inevitably corrupts our "representative democracy." For how can our system be representative if the voices our leaders harken to are not "representative" of the concerns of American society as a whole?

The freedom to write a check to one's favorite politician may be represented, through some creative interpretation by judicial activists of the right, as an extension of our first amendment rights to "freedom of speech." But it doesn't take any weird extrapolation to grasp that if our system enables the rich to translate their wealth into political power, it cannot be protecting the 14th Amendment rights of all our citizens to "equal protection under the laws."

No task is more central to the justice of our society and the legitimacy of our laws than the protection of the democratic equality of political power.

"One person, one vote" is what the democratic idea of justice declares. "One dollar, one vote" is corruption. Corruption is not just a matter of bribery and influence-peddling. Corruption includes anything that allows "Money talks" to displace the vox populi --the voice of the people-- in the affairs of our government.

Our economic system --the market economy-- inevitably produces great inequalities of wealth. These inequalities are not necessarily, in themselves, unjust. But if our capitalist economics are to be reconciled with the ideals of our democratic politics, our political system must be stringently insulated from the intrusion of private wealth into our public elections.

What's wrong with this system of private funding of the election of our public officials? It fosters the displacement of our democracy by plutocracy: government of the people, by the rich, for the rich.

Nothing less than a system of public financing will protect the integrity of our political system.

1. Andrew Bard Schmookler is the author of The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.