LETTERS: COST OF GOVERNMENT RARELY INFLUENCED BY THE BALLOT BOX

To the editor:

Your Friday editorial "Congressional perks: getting the facts" concludes that "If voters choose to re-elect their representatives and senators, it is one indication they approve of the package" of federal pensions and other perquisites of congressional office. While your piece is otherwise quite accurate, this broad claim is both wrong and misleading.

In fact, voters very rarely have the power to do something about the cost of government by going to the ballot box. Roll back to the 1992 congressional "contest" between Congressman Bill Emerson and Democratic candidate Thad Bullock. If you were unhappy about congressional perks, do you "do something about it" by voting for Mr. Bullock? He many have no position on the issue; if elected, he probably couldn't get it changed anyhow; and he had no chance to win that election. How was any voter to use this vehicle to express a view on congressional perks?

Most young adults now have very little faith in elections. That's for good reason. In the past 10 years House members have been re-elected 19 times out of 20 even as citizen anger drove the Congress down to an alltime low of popularity. Why do the members win so routinely? Because they usually lack genuine opponents. Voters aren't responsibility for that, but that's what they get in November.

Given your faith in our current election system, surely you will disagree with senatorial candidate John Ashcroft's support of a 12-year term limitation. Why deny voters the right to re-elect someone if elections really are sharp instruments for voters to express positions on perks or other issues?

Russell D. Renka

Cape Girardeau