ABC News’ Rick Klein and David Chalian report: On Wednesday, lawmakers plan to introduce a measure that would allow congressional candidates to receive public funds for their campaigns — a bill that would dramatically remake what it means to run for Congress, and maybe what it means to serve in Congress.
The bailouts and deficits now dominating the discussion on Capitol Hill would make this seem like a less-than-perfect time for a bill that would give billions in public funds to candidates for office, via a new assessment on companies that receive government contracts.
But actor Sam Waterston, who is in Washington this week to press for the measure, sees it another way.
“I think one way to look at it is to imagine what the conversation about the bailouts would be — what it would be like and how it would be changed if we were all absolutely certain that money wasn’t a factor and anything that anybody was saying for or against helping these various industries,” Waterston told us on “Politics Live” today.
The scandal over AIG bonuses and other anger at Wall Street is an argument for this kind of overhaul of campaign-finance law, he said.
“I believe that the financial sector has contributed to $10 billion over the last 20 years to federal elections, and so at least there’s the question as to whether or not that didn’t buy some influence, and if it did then it’s got something to do with where we are today,” Waterston said.
The bill is a long-shot to become law. It will be introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers this week — including powerhouse senators Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of President Obama’s closest allies on Capitol Hill.
We also talked to the “Law & Order” star about how the president has modeled himself on Abraham Lincoln. Waterston has portrayed Lincoln on stage and screen, in his words, “more than you can count on the fingers of two hands.”
“These are very, very large shoes to fill, as you can see if you go and look at his statue at the end of the Mall,” Waterston said. “But that he admires him, seems to me that any American politician who didn’t would be — you know, you’d want to ask him some sharp questions because he was such a strikingly great — he was such a great figure as a politician and as a spokesman for the issues that mattered in his time.”
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