by Greg D. Kubiak

About the author: Greg D. Kubiak is a Washington, D.C., political writer and syndicated columnist. As an aide to former Oklahoma senator David Boren, Kubiak drafted congressional campaign reform legislation that was introduced to, and approved by, the U.S. Senate in 1993. Kubiak is the author of The Gilded Dome: The U.S. Senate and Campaign Finance Reform, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

In 1992, members of the U.S. Senate received an annual salary of just over $125,000. Yet the cost of running a successful race for election to that body averaged $4 million. Senators running for reelection must raise roughly $12,000 each week during each year of their six-year term to amass an adequate campaign war chest. To the average American, such funds must surely seem extravagant and such a fund-raising capacity...