Millionaires in Congress: Danger to democracy?

Editor's note: This is the last column of this series. Beginning next week, Michael will write a weekly movie review column appearing Friday.

Should career success and financial security disqualify a candidate from seeking high public office?

That's the implication in a report for Associated Press that hyperventilated over the large number of wealthy people entering the new Congress in January. Under the headline "DOZENS OF MILLIONAIRES IN 2002 CONGRESS," AP writer Jonathan D. Salant took note of a purportedly alarming trend. "Overall, 27 of the 63 freshmen – 43 percent – declared holdings that exceeded $1 million, compared with 1 percent of the American public," he wrote, and then quoted approvingly from Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, described here as a "Washington watchdog group."

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"How representative of the American people are these new freshmen members?" Mr. Lewis asked.

He might as well have questioned whether their educational level rendered the incoming congressional class unrepresentative, since virtually all of them possess college degrees, but 75 percent of the public does not.

Would it make sense to insist that 75 percent of the members of Congress never graduate from college, and that 13 percent of them never graduate from high school, in order to ensure that they accurately reflect the makeup of the overall populace?

The argument is absurd, of course, since even on the extreme left, nearly all commentators accept the notion that an advanced education generally makes a politician more qualified for the challenging task of representing a congressional district in the House of Representatives, or an entire state in the U.S. Senate.

If we agree that it would be ridiculous to discriminate against candidates because of their educational achievements, then why should we discount them because of their financial achievements? Do we honestly believe that earning a university degree provides a more reliable indication of talent and leadership ability than accumulating a personal net worth of more than a million dollars?

To be fair, some fortunate American politicians (the names Teddy Kennedy and Jay Rockefeller spring immediately to mind) won their wealth the old-fashioned way – they inherited it. But numerous recent studies (including the bestseller "The Millionaire Next Door") proved that the overwhelming majority of today's millionaires represent the first generation of their families to achieve this level of success.

Today, in fact, when even a mid-level home in a major urban area may be assessed at $500,000 or more, it's easy for people who hardly qualify as "wealthy" to achieve a theoretical net worth in excess of one million dollars. A recent government study even suggested that in view of uncertainty regarding the Social Security system, an ordinary American couple must accumulate a retirement portfolio of at least $285,000 to make sure that they can live above the poverty line after they stop working. With such figures in mind, it's profoundly misleading to categorize the 27 congressional freshmen with total assets in excess of a million dollars as obscenely, stinkin' rich.

In fact, it's hard to imagine a middle-aged American who's achieved the sort of conspicuous success in any field that might make him an attractive congressional candidate not coming close to that million dollar net worth – unless he's made the sort of ill-considered investments that might lead to questions about his wisdom and maturity. The AP article quotes one of the incoming House members, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., making a similar point. "You want people who have good judgment and have the courage to stand up for what they believe in. If people have done well, that means they're successful. Maybe that's part of leadership."

Ironically, the much heralded campaign finance reform that was supposed to level the playing field in a populist direction has only served to increase the likelihood of more millionaire candidates. Neither McCain-Feingold nor any other "reform" proposal can interfere with a wealthy candidate's ability to invest money in his own campaign – because the Supreme Court has unequivocally declared that you have a First Amendment right to spend as much as you want on behalf of your own candidacy.

The new legislation does make it more difficult, however, to raise money from other individuals and groups – thereby conferring an additional advantage on well-to-do, self-financing candidates. Richard Nixon was a struggling young lawyer from the wrong side of the tracks when a small group of wealthy backers took an interest in him and sponsored his first congressional campaign. With today's regulations, that sort of support for a deserving poor boy would prove difficult, if not impossible.

Contrary to prevailing mythology, the politicians of the past whom we respect most intensely may have sprung from humble origins but nearly all got rich either before or during their political careers. We think of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln as roughhewn men of the people but, by the time they ran for president, Jackson was a conspicuously wealthy lawyer and planter and Lincoln had earned admission into his state's elite as a prosperous railroad lawyer (just tour his comfortable home in Springfield).

Once upon a time, the public loved such unlikely success stories – just as they marveled at the trajectory of Herbert Hoover's life, from destitute Iowa orphan boy, to multi-millionaire mining engineer (and philanthropist) by the age of 30. Unfortunately, too many cynics in today's society view financial resources as a reflection of crookery and corruption, rather than the product of talent and hard work. If we came to a more realistic recognition of the difficulty and energy involved in building wealth, we might not look askance at the unremarkable situation that those most likely to win at high profile electoral politics already will have established themselves in the commercial arena as undeniably successful.