LETTERS: DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IS THREATENED

To the editor:

Following the election cycle of 1996, a great deal of attention was paid to the buying of voters by political candidates in Southeast Missouri. There is no doubt that such activities threaten the democratic nature of our form of government and should be dealt with harshly.

However, when we are considering the way in which money threatens a democratic form of government, we should also recognize that tolerating the purchasing of elected officials by corporations and corporate trade associations is equally threatening. Curiously, however, many of the same folks who find it intolerable that voters should be rewarded for their consideration at the polls argue that some freedom-of-speech principle should allow corporations to funnel thousands of dollars to politicians seeking election to office. So long as we know what the buyers are seeking, and that our elected officials are responding less to public concern than to corporate concern and thus can respond accordingly at the ballot box, then we must accept that we get what we deserve. All too often, however, voters do not know that their elected officials hold positions curiously and coincidentally identical to their money sources. When voters accept money from candidates, we certainly consider this to be prima facie evidence of bribery, even if the voters would have cast their ballots the same way without funding. In the same way, we are suspicious of elected officials who might argue that the funds do not influence their positions or their votes.

Thus, when we find that U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond has a goal of weakening the law that requires polluting industries to contribute to the so-called Toxic Superfund, and then we learn that he has received over half a million dollars from pro-pollution corporations and trade associations that are committed to the same position, we should be forgiven if we become more than a little suspicious that the candidate really does not represent all his constituency.

ALAN R.P. JOURNET

Cape Girardeau