wfn.org | NCCCUSA on Campaign Finance Reform

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252

A Statement on Campaign Finance Reform
Rev. Dr. Albert M. Pennybacker
Associate General Secretary, NCCC
October 4, 1997

	The National Council of Churches joins with others today to urge
legislators to break the logjam which has blocked campaign finance reform
efforts for so long and to pass a meaningful bipartisan reform bill.  Our
long-standing commitment to campaign finance reform grows directly from
profound religious faith:  every human being is a person of dignity and
worth as a child of God. In our democracy a signal of that dignity and
worth is a fair and just electoral process where all people are included
equitably and with respect.

	What a moral affront to buy or sell either the public trust or the
individual vote!  In our policy statements we have long held that unfair
campaign financing violates the moral integrity of public life.

	Our support for current campaign finance reform comes from seeing it as an
important step in moral correction.  Of course, even the proposed
legislation is not perfect.  Inequities will still need attention.  But we
believe that such reform can strengthen the control of corrupting processes
that attack the very heart of democratic elections.  The undue influence of
money diminishes the voting power of ordinary citizens.

	Further, we are very concerned about widespread disillusionment with
public life, and especially political life.  Religion means for us God's
mandate for the well-being of all people.  We have long sought "the common
good".  We have long stood against religious self-seeking or the private
advantage of any religious group.  It is not our "good" we seek; it is the
"common good". Disillusionment and cynicism over politics and electoral
processes must be addressed.  We believe that campaign finance reform can
be a step toward building "the common good."

	Let me add one more piece to our public endorsement of campaign finance
reform.  In Protestant Christian heritage we have long affirmed what we
call "Christian vocation".  Many elected public officials see their works
as a public trust, and go about it with a genuine sense of religious
commitment - a "vocation".  They serve God by serving the well-being of all
people.  When public officials are consumed by constant fund raising, they
cannot adequately invest themselves in fulfilling the public leadership
role with which they have been entrusted.  Our current campaign financing
practices inflict frantic demands and exhausting requirements on political
leaders.  Every sensitivity to them has to insist on reform.

	So here we are - I on behalf of the National Council of Churches - to urge
support for effective campaign finance reform.  We call for prompt
consideration and passage of such a reform bill, and urge legislators to
oppose amendments currently being offered to the McCain-Feingold measure in
an effort to kill its passage.  It is rooted in our religious tradition of
public morality and the pursuit of the common good.  We call on people in
churches and other religious communities across the land to support leaders
in the Administration and the Members of Congress who have the wisdom and
courage to enact genuine reform.

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