by Paul Dueweke
CHAPTER FIVE
COPE
Elliott sat before the computer in his own office at the University and logged onto the X-Web. Let’s see, he thought. “COPE” and “Background.” A myriad of images assaulted his eyes and ears. He ignored everything and looked at the “In the Beginning” button. His display roared back at him.
The Committee for Political Equality is an agency of the Executive Branch whose mission is to preserve free competition among political parties. It was created by President Prince, the first president from the CBS Party. It’s the only government agency not wholly funded by the taxpayer. Instead, half of its budget is derived from the Federal Government with the other half being contributed by the political parties that it monitors—”a self-funding agency” as President Prince dubbed it, “a joint venture between the private and the public sectors to protect our precious freedoms for future generations.”
COPE has evolved over the years to the very essence of what the public and private sectors can accomplish when they team their resources for the benefit of all Americans. It is our most trusted watchdog. It has three basic functions: monitor the spending of parties and candidates, investigate the truth of candidates’ claims, and assure the quality of candidates.
He clicked the “Spending” button, and Jack from Election Beat burst into the room followed by a half dozen young, athletic, and naked assistants, each weighed down with a stack of reports that Jack explained represented the spending and budget accounts of the political candidates in just one state for just the spring election season.
“This proves that COPE goes all the way for America,” Jack said. “COPE is so effective at uncovering scandals and breeches of the public trust, that it has expanded its activities. And as it matures, more levels of improprieties and waste are uncovered. COPE’s goal: zero tolerance. That’s the least Americans deserve.”
Elliott clicked the “Truth” button. A giant truthometer shaped like a thermometer zoomed out at him with the cold days before COPE hovering at the 20 percent level and then climbing after COPE to over 80 percent at the present.
Jack appeared again with his assistants dragging a firehose behind them. “Imagine that each lie that COPE has saved Americans is a drop of water. Now let’s take a look at that saving in just the last election season.”
The firehose came to life as Elliott clicked the “Quality” button. A very portly and bald cigar-smoker with a phone in one hand and a drink in the other, grew to fill the screen “If you wouldn’t buy a car from him,” Jack said, “why would you let him represent you in Washington?”
The scene morphed into a tanned jock just as he snapped a blinding serve past his opponent. One of Jack’s assistants rushed onto the court yelling, “Senator Longbone from Colorado!” Then a bare-breasted beauty screamed out a hit song to a convulsing audience. Another assistant jumped onto the stage shouting, “Representative Shakem from—”
Elliott clicked “Stop” and sank back in his chair with the last image frozen before him. Finally he reviewed “What others say about COPE.” There were over a hundred links to other sites, and he perused many of them before deciding that they were merely projections of the same party line he had witnessed from the COPE site. He ended up staring at a picture of COPE’s main entrance lobby with the inscription in granite above the door: “The freedom of political choice is so fundamental to America that we must not abandon it to the whims of unaccountable politicians. Let us insure a level playing field for our political process. In the long look of history, COPE will be seen as the lever on which balances our fragile Republic.”
He sat back wondering about those words and suddenly said out loud, “Paper, that’s the answer—good old fashioned paper.” As he logged off, he continued, “If it weren’t for me, the Lab wouldn’t even have a library anymore. I’ll bet in a year it’ll be turned into a multi-media center or a holographic interface port. But right now, it’s still a library.”
He turned on the light as he entered the library. The librarian had been retained until about fifteen years ago when they discontinued the last paper periodical subscriptions. The library contained books dating back well into the twentieth century, many of them predating even the beginning of electronic library references in 1985. Elliott had used these paper references often during his career to the dismay of most of his colleagues. But today he rummaged through some non-technical books that had probably never been off the shelf. After paging through the indices of several, he found one with a major heading of “COPE” and a dozen subheadings under it. Elliott began reading.
COPE established its headquarters in an impressive white building in the hills above Hollywood. Its director maintained that it needed to be physically detached from the political influences of Washington if it was to “steadfastly serve the interests of the people whom it is sworn to safeguard, rather than bow to the winds of partisan politics.” It chose to be close to this world media capital with which it has a symbiotic relationship. It also wished to be close to the technology of Silicon Valley.
Elliott paged to another section of the book.
After the end of the cold war and the legalization of drugs, the FBI fell into disfavor and experienced serious budget declines. The FBI director sold the idea of a new agency to the president and became the director of COPE using J. Edgar Hoover as a role model. The FBI continued as the senior agency but with a much smaller budget than COPE.
Then COPE was instrumental in getting the law repealed that had legalized drugs, even though the law had successfully reduced drug-related crime by over 90%. Soon the drug wars were once more in full bloom, and business was booming again at the FBI.
A rider to an act of Congress shortly after COPE was founded established Federal funding of all “serious” political parties seeking national office. Unserious candidates were defined as those not supported by a major party. The two well-funded parties, in turn, funded the private-sector half of COPE.
Elliott studied a table showing the projected COPE budget ramping up rapidly with most of it going into its newest mission: assuring the quality of candidates. Elliott leaned back against the bookshelf where he sat on the floor and thought, So that’s what they mean by a self-funding agency. Then he continued reading:
The formal mission of COPE was to monitor the activities of the political parties to insure that they all play by the same rules. With the appropriate political and media support, Americans embraced it fervently. Once created, however, its mission and its budget broadened.
“Hm,” he said to the book as it grayed out in his lap. “I wonder how they enforce their rules. And what kind of technology are they developing to do the enforcing?”