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Honorariums -- fees paid for speeches and other appearances -- are often little more than cash for the pleasure of a powerful Congressman's company. The all-expenses-paid invitations are so enticing that a lawmaker will sometimes make the trip accompanied by his family. If he has already exceeded the annual limit on outside income (about $35,000 for a Senator, $26,000 for a Congressman), he donates the speaking fee to charity. Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, will go almost anywhere golf is played. He gave 51 speeches last year; along the way he played in three celebrity golf tournaments, including the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. For leading two discussions on "handling stress," Speaker Wright was a guest at California's La Costa Hotel & Spa last August.
Particularly questionable was a $2,000 payment on April 1, 1987, by the Oshkosh Truck Corp. to each of six House Armed Services Committee members just for coming to breakfast. A few hours later, an Armed Services subcommittee passed a measure to force the Army to buy 500 more Oshkosh trucks than it needs. Coincidence, says Oshkosh.
Most politicians claim not to be influenced by money or favors, professing to follow the dictum of California Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh: "If you can't drink their booze, eat their food, ((have)) their women and vote against them in the morning, you don't belong in this place."
Even when the public does find a direct link between a contribution and a Congressman's vote, throwing the bum out is not as easy as it used to be. Incumbents with huge campaign chests scare off all but the most fearless challengers. Add to money the other advantages of incumbency -- free broadcast studios, newsletters that are printed and mailed to constituents at the taxpayers' expense, a staff that helps hundreds of local voters get Social Security checks -- and it is no wonder that only 50 of the 435 House races are being genuinely contested this year.
A bill to limit campaign financing was filibustered to death by Republicans last February. Efforts to curb honorariums have failed because lawmakers complain they cannot get by on $89,500 a year, a lament that understandably falls on deaf ears beyond the Beltway, where the median family income is $29,460.
Congressmen often mutter that the best way to remove the temptation to make money on the side is to raise their salaries. Perhaps, but their pay has been raised in the past with no noticeable improvement in ethics. Serving in Congress is a choice freely made, an honor partly its own reward. What has not been tried is sound rules with stiff penalties, but that is because Congress sets its own standards.