Archive for December 12th, 2008

I’ve been watching with some interest the self-righteous denunciations of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell Pres.-elect Obama’s vacated Senate seat. According to various stories, Blagojevich wanted to exchange the seat for a high-paid position for himself somewhere, board memberships for his wife, campaign contributions and other such things. As he noted, “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden… I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing…”

Of course, it is unseemly (and illegal) to consider a Senate seat your personal property to dispose of in exchange for goods, services, or cash, but for all his indelicacy, Blagojevich is right. A Senate seat is worth a considerable amount. The Club for Growth released a back-of-the-envelope calculation stating that it was worth $6.2 million — for 2 terms at salary, plus a cushy lobbying job after and a pension.

This is an interesting number, since according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the average amount spent to win a senate seat hit $6.5 million this year. Not only would the new Senator Blagojevich tapped have earned $6.2 million over his/her lifetime from the post, he would have avoided having to drum up $6.5 million from other people. Again, this is a thing of value.

And some people spend a lot more than $6.5 million winning their seats, particularly in Illinois. Back in 1998, Peter Fitzgerald spent over $14 million of his own money unseating Carol Moseley Braun. Blair Hull vowed to spend $40 million of his own money trying to win the seat Obama ultimately landed. For him, a campaign contribution of a few hundred-thou would be quite a bargain.

Given that your personal lifetime earnings from a Senate seat aren’t that huge, why would so many people pay so much more for the post? Perhaps it’s a desire for public service. Some certainly think they can make the world a better place. Another answer, of course, is that the $6.2 million number isn’t the full picture. Senators can direct millions of dollars toward their own personal causes, giving them influence over far more dollars than their salaries show. It’s $3 million for sugar cane here, $24 million for sugar beets there and soon you have a lot of grateful people. What do these people do? They ask you to speak once you retire. They hire your children and neighbors. They hold dinners honoring you. They crowd around you at parties acting all deferential. And when you have clout over lots of money — even if it isn’t yours — you feel powerful. Power, Kissinger noted, is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Why wouldn’t Blagojevich try to get something in return for bestowing that upon someone?

People have all sorts of ideas about how to reduce the influence of money in politics. The easiest way to reduce money’s influence, though, is to reduce the influence of politicians over money. A federal government with a far smaller budget would be a much less tempting target.