May 1, 2000
As the University of Mississippi's Trent Lott Leadership Institute nears completion, the leadership training will begin in earnest. The question is, what kind of leaders is the Institute preparing to train? Our need for leaders has never been more urgent. The earth is experiencing ecological disaster, with creatures going extinct faster than at any other time in the history of the planet. The pending disruption contains grave implications for humanity, including disruption of food supplies and changing climates. Exacerbating the problem is an ever-widening income gap between rich and poor that threatens the very fabric of civilized society. Corporations, with their bottom line mentality, are largely behind the calamity. By extension, so is Trent Lott.
If the private donations that were raised are any indication, the Institute will continue to create followers of the corporate creed, and not leaders. The donor list reads like a who's who of the corporate power establishment. According to the Washington Post, corporate executives raised over $10 million for the Institute last May at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Lockheed Martin is contributing $1 million over five years. MCI Worldcom is also giving $1 million. The Jackson-based telecommunications firm was lobbying Congress at the time on issues such as the Internet and satellite communications. This fact is reportedly unrelated to MCI largesse, but it did earn their executives brunch with Lott on the morning of the event, as well as an engraved listing on the institute's Founding Member Wall.
Despite such seating arrangements, and despite the fact that many of the contributors were lobbyists for some of the world's largest corporations, Senator Lott insists that the fund raising is beyond reproach. "The only things benefactors will be buying with their gifts are the desks, books and other materials to help students in this new Ole Miss program," Lott told the Washington Post. "If anyone thinks otherwise, they are mistaken."
Meanwhile, student leaders around the country, without prompting from leadership institutes, are struggling to protect their universities from corporate control. Food services, athletic teams, and bookstores are increasingly dominated by corporate interests. More importantly, corporations have mastered the art of using government grants and public universities to subsidize their research. Corporate cash is slowly transforming the university into a place where the goal is to create profitsÑnot knowledgeÑand the University appears oblivious to this deeply corrupting process. "All universities honor members of Congress through events and naming opportunities," University spokeswoman Gloria Kellum told the Washington Post. "In university life, the margin of excellence comes from private donations." Such excellence came from the oil industry, casinos, tobacco, banking, shipbuilding, chemicals and construction.
The Leadership Institute is merely an example of something much larger and corrupt: the domination of society and politics by corporate clout. Senator Lott, who is stealthily running for reelection this year, has protected and enhanced corporate access to Congress during his tenure as Senate Majority Leader. Current legislation before Congress, if passed, may make matters worse. According to Common Cause, a national organization that has been working to toughen campaign finance laws, the Senate Republican Leadership is planning to hold a series of hearings this spring on campaign finance reform. But is relief in store for critics of the current system?
The bill they are rallying around is a measure introduced last year by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). The Hagel bill, S. 1816, would, for the first time, codify the soft money loophole that corporations and their executives use to fund the national political parties. The legislation would also triple the current legal contribution limits. According to Common Cause president Scott Harshbarger, "the Hagel proposal's cure is worse than the disease. It etches into law a loophole which allows parties to spend money from corporations and unions on behalf of federal candidates." Under the bill, a single individual would be authorized to give $270,000 in an election cycle.
As Senator Lott quietly runs for reelection this year he calmly sits on over $2 million in campaign contributions, a sizable sum for someone who represents a state dominated by low income individuals. Are people so enamored with his leadership that they are giving hand over fist? Some people are. For example, over the course of his two and a half decades in the Congress he has accepted a total of $100,000 in donations from the tobacco industry. According to Common Cause, the industry donated $30,850 of this cash since 1994, just as the pressure increased on tobacco. Thus it came as no surprise to some that Lott's leadership would help to destroy the National Tobacco Policy and Youth Smoking Reduction Act.
The University of Mississippi isn't the only institution to recognize Trent Lott's "leadership." On May 28, 1998 the Wall Street Journal featured an article detailing the fundraising practices of his political action committee, the New Republican Majority Fund. Between 1995-1998, there were 144 donors who gave the $5,000 limit. Of these, four out of five of them could be identified as having a business interest pending in specific legislation before Congress. About half of these donors received some sort of personal attention from Lott.
For example, when the telecommunications bill was before Congress, Worldcom executives sponsored fund-raisers for Lott. The legislation paved the way for Worldcom to acquire MCI. Needless to say, Sen. Lott voted in favor. In another instance, a corporation called World City wanted the Federal Maritime Administration to approve its proposal for the "world's largest cruise ship." The agency turned the request down. Suddenly, World City flooded congressmen with campaign donations, including $24,000 to Lott's New Republican PAC. Around the same time, Lott set up a meeting with one of his aides and the Secretary of Transportation. Lott also wrote a letter to the Secretary that said "It's a significant opportunity for America to show its leadership as both a shipbuilding and tourism nation."
In his position as Senate Majority Leader, Lott has had ample opportunity to provide leadership on campaign finance reform. Instead, in addition to voting against campaign finance reform at every opportunity, Lott has worked to actively destroy it. He has added measures to campaign finance bills that would doom its passage. He has led filibusters and employed parliamentary procedures to buck the will of the Senate. He has ignored his colleagues, who at one time had 45 Democrats and 7 Republicans favoring the McCain-Feingold reform bill, which would have banned soft money contributions to political parties for federal elections. He's claimed on national television that people in Mississippi don't care about campaign finance reform.
In a recent constituent form letter, Senator Lott's office claims that his fierce opposition to campaign finance reform is due to his belief in freedom of speech. In the Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the court noted the danger to democracy in "the appearance of corruption stemming from public awareness of the opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large individual financial contributions." Trent Lott's career exemplifies the appearance of corruption of which the high court spoke. The opportunity for leadershipÑin the campaign finance arena and othersÑhas been squandered by a politician content to follow the will of corporate rule. Future leaders of Mississippi, beware. The Trent Lott Leadership Institute is opening soon on a campus near you.
Keith Wright is an activist for the Freedom Hills Green Party of North Mississippi, a political party dedicated to democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecology.