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Show t The theme of the 1960s seemed to be "Get Involved." College campuses rocked with students trying to become part of the Ameri- : can scene. In suburbs and inner-cities, the cry went forth that people ; were too aloof from one another. To a great extent these advocates of involvement were successful. But in the political arena, apathy still reigns supreme. 1 That is why Reps. Tom Railsback (R.-Ill.) and David Obey i (D.-Wis.) surprised us when they introduced their bill to curb the . influence of political action committees (PACs). Their bill, j HR4970, would considerably limit the involvement of these groups a in the political process, first, by cutting in half the amount of money a PAC could contribute to a candidate (from $15,000 including a runoff election to $7,500); second, by limiting a candidate to $50,000 that he or she could receive from all PACs combined; and 1 third, by prohibiting any extension of credit in excess of $1,000 for : more than 30 days that relates to advertising, direct mail fund i solicitations and other similar types of general public political ad- ,' vertising. . By themselves these measures may sound acceptable. But when 0 viewed from the perspective of the PACs themselves, they become - the death knell for political involvement. PACs were established so that individual citizens could join together to-gether to become an effective voice in the electoral process. These concerned citizens pool their resources in a concerted effort to contribute to the campaigns of the candidates who best meet their 'J particular needs. These are ordinary people like you and me who just -want to have a voice in the political process and know that by : themselves, acting alone, they can accomplish little; but that as a j group, they can do much. The elimination of that involvement is, in the final analysis, the real problem witji HR .4970. It takes. the people put of the electqral..., H process and labels political involvement as a nonessential item. But ; as we all know, in our political system, involvement is not window dressing. It is the heart of the system. : 1 |