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Political child abuse
Miami's Cuban-American community is playing out the trauma of its exile by exploiting 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez.
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[01/12/00]

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[01/10/00]

Money can buy you love
Peter Eisner of the Center for Public Integrity talks about "The Buying of the President 2000."
By Alicia Montgomery
[01/10/00]

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So it was hardly a surprise to see the Indiana Republican, who is a member of the House International Relations Committee, take a leading role in the tug-of-war over six-year-old Cuban refugee Elián González last week. He issued a subpoena ordering Elián to appear before Congress on Feb. 11, in an effort to buy time for Cuban-Americans to appeal the Clinton administration's decision to reunite the boy with his father in Cuba.

"First and foremost, I want to make sure that Elián's rights are protected," Burton stated. "I am issuing this subpoena to provide a measure of legal protection while the court is considering this case."

As strong his political convictions about communism may be, Burton appears to have another, less lofty motivation for his actions on behalf of the Cuban-American exile community. A close look at his campaign finances by the Indianapolis Star has revealed that Burton has raised over $30,000 from South Florida contributors so far in his current campaign, compared to only $4,700 -- or only one-sixth of that amount -- from backers in his home state.

Burton's Florida support dates mostly from his role in the 1995 Helms-Burton Act, which he co-authored with Jesse Helms to stiffen the 35-year embargo against Cuba. Helms-Burton penalizes foreign companies doing business with Cuban interests that involve land or businesses expropriated from refugees by the Castro regime. The act also forbids government agencies from granting Visas to executives from companies that flout the rules and permit Cuban-Americans to sue them in American courts (though implementation of this provision has been thwarted several times by President Clinton) .

Helms-Burton spawned a number of trade controversies with Canada and Europe, and ultimately has done little to speed Castro's fall. But Helms-Burton is a politically important symbol for Cuban-Americans, and they have rewarded Burton generously for his work. In 1996, for example, he raised $67,550 in the sunshine state, $25,000 more than he got from his own constituents.

But this is not an isolated case. Burton also is famous for accepting campaign contributions from donors with South Asian surnames, most of whom are American Sikhs, whose obscure cause Burton dutifully champions year after year. (Sikhs hope to establish their own country carved out of India.)

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Burton's fundraising behavior is highly unusual. Congressional candidates typically raise the "overwhelming majority" of their campaign funds -- the median figure for the 2000 campaign to date is 83 percent -- within their own state. But so far this election cycle, Burton has done just the opposite, raising roughly 85 percent of his funding in South Florida. He is also unusual in that this hasn't hurt him politically -- yet. During the 1998 elections, fewer than one in ten winning House candidates received the majority of their campaign funding from out-of-state donors, but Burton has not faced a serious electoral challenge in years.

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