Honest Graft: Inside the Business of Politics - Hardcover

Jackson, Brooks

9780394564524: Honest Graft: Inside the Business of Politics

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394564529 ISBN 13: 9780394564524

Publisher: Knopf, 1988

A "Wall Street Journal" reporter draws on Democratic and Republican party papers to explain the role of special-interest monies in Congressional campaigns, the resulting corruption and financial dependencies, and the impact on American politics

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From Publishers Weekly:

In this well-researched study, Wall Street Journal reporter Jackson describes how special interests often influence election results by providing needed funds when campaign contributions within legal limits prove insufficient. Moreover, with TV ads, polling services, post-free "franked" newsletters, professional staff work, etc., incumbent members of Congress can overwhelm a challenger, notes the author, and therefore frequently run unopposed, thus in effect disenfranchising the American voter. The heavy cost of campaigning, Jackson finds, can lead to "soft" or indirect money benefits for a candidate: fund-raising events, "appearance" fees, investment suggestions and so on. Such measures, he argues, are instituted in many cases by political action committees (PACs) representing business, labor, banking, real estate and other groups or individuals likely to be affected by pending legislation. Jackson details little-known, extra-legal money-raising devices and names names reaching high up into party leaderships in this overlong but eye-opening look at American politics. First serial to the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

Special interests have taken over the electoral process, according to journalist Brooks Jackson. Through the use of so-called Political Action Committees, every group from ambulance owners to dry cleaners to the savings and loan industry contributes enormous sums to the election coffers of virtually every member of the U.S. Congress, receiving special - if deniable - consideration in return. The result is a system of "honest graft" in which congressmen are beholden to special interests and ordinary citizens are deprived of the power of their votes. Though this is not an original thesis, Jackson does much more than restate the obvious in this intriguing expos6 of the corrupting influence of money on the American political process. He aptly concentrates on three key congressmen in the savings and loan abomination - Jim Wright, Fernand St. Germain, and, especially, Tony Coelho - politicians eventually devoured by the very system they used so skillfully. -- From Independent Publisher

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