Dear Senator McCain:

Congratulations on the brave fight you put up for fundamental reform of our corrupt campaign funding system. I'm sure most Americans agree and would support you, but the special interests whose money enables Senators and Presidential candidates alike to succeed are also powerful enough to defeat praiseworthy initiatives such as your McCain-Feingold bill. However, I believe another approach with the same objective in view could succeed and I wish you would support such an initiative in the Senate. I should add that I fully agree with you that you can accomplish more for our country as a Senator than you could as Vice President.

The approach that can succeed, I believe, involves a long-term perspective. Instead of tackling the enemy head on, why not support a series of non-threatening incremental reforms that might lead to the outcomes you have in mind. For example, if any President were to give cabinet status to his Chief of Staff -- as Pres. Clinton did for our Ambassador to the UN -- it would make the office subject to Senate confirmation and hence contribute to greater accountability in the White House. As it is now, the most important appointed official in our government is not subject to Congressional review as are a host of appointments of far less political significance. A series of such steps could help to close the gap between our Executive and Legislative branches and reduce the pressures that perpetuate our scandalous campaign funding system and its linked pork-barrel rip-offs. Perhaps a series of such reforms would pave the way for success in the more fundamental reforms you have been promoting.

In order to think through and plan such incremental changes, however, we need a powerful think tank in Washington -- perhaps something like the U.S. Institute for Peace -- that would become a non-threatening but potent source of ideas and actions contributing toward long-run goals of major significance. It might be called "The United States Institute for Constitutional Democracy." No such institution now exists! What could be more important than preserving our Constitution and overcoming abuses that block the achievement of the noble goals our Founding Fathers had in mind? Why not sponsor a bill that would create and fund such an Institute? We do have national programs to promote democracy abroad -- why not do the same for America, figuring out how to combat the major threats to democracy at home? Senators who may only give lip service to campaign funding reform because their own support base would be jeopardized ought to be glad to support a non-threatening measure designed to re-create the integrity of constitutional democracy in America. I have written and thought about this and, if you are interested, would be glad to give you more concrete proposals and put you in touch with other supporters of the idea. They could also help you work out a strategy in Washington that would help mobilize the support base in the House as well as the Senate for a measure any President could also endorse.

With all best wishes for your growing success as a national leader in the American Senate.

Sincerely yours, with much aloha, Fred W. Riggs

---

Updated: 14 April 1999