July 20, 2006Eagle-Tribune lauds Baddours independence and Big Dig oversight
State Sen. Steven Baddour, D-Methuen, has taken campaign donations from contractors, lawyers and lobbyists involved in the Big Dig.
But the co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Transportation is no tool of construction companies. Quite the contrary. His record indicates he has taken a hard line on the contractors whose shoddy work has turned the Big Dig into a national laughingstock.
The Baddour example illustrates the fallacy behind much of campaign finance reform. It takes money to run political campaigns. Unions, corporations and "special interest" groups should have as much right to make political donations as individuals do. Reformers have focused on shutting off the money and limiting political speech. But it is not the money itself that is corrupting. It is the possibility that politicians can find ways to hide their sources of funding that is troubling.
