American Notes Congress

The "people's House" is becoming richer and richer. Figures reported last week by New York City's Democracy Project, a liberal think tank, and the Public Interest Research Group, a similar institution in Washington, D.C., showed that the wealth of the 43 new members elected last year to the House of Representatives was almost four times greater than that reported by the 77 freshmen elected in 1978, after accounting for inflation. On the average, each of the 43 Representatives had assets of $251,296, vs. $41,358 for the 1978 group. Among the new lawmakers are as many as 15 millionaires, compared with only one in 1978. The wealthiest: Georgia Republican Patrick Swindall, with minimum assets of $1.1 million, not including his home. The tabulations were the idea of Mark Green, head of the Democracy Project and a longtime Ralph Nader associate. Congressmen spent an average of $459,344 to get elected, and of that sum an average of $50,329 came from their own pockets. This "congressional plutocracy" worries Green, who argues that diverse democracy cannot be represented adequately by a "one-class Congress." His solution: using tax money to provide partial financing of congressional campaigns.