11 Republican Senators, 41 Republican House Members and One Republican President Signed BCRA-2002

Congress | 12/10/03 | John Walsh

[jwalsh07]

11 Republican Senators who voted for the BCFA of 2002:

McCain, Fitzgerald, Lugar, Collins, Snowe, Cochran, Domenicic, Spector, Chafee, Thompson Warner

41 Republican House Members voted for the BCFA of 2002:

Bohlert, Bono, Capito, Castle, Ferguson, Foley, Frelinghausen, Ganske, Gilchrest, Gilman, Graham, Greenwood, Grucci, Houghton, Horn, Johnson(CT), Johnson(IL), Kirk, LaTourette, Leach, LoBiondo, McHugh, Morella, Osborne, Ose, Petri, Platts, Quinn, Ramstad, Ros-Lehtinen, Sanders, Shays, Simmons, Smith(Mi), Thune, Upton, Walsh(not my clan), Wamp, Weldon(Pa), Wolf

One President Signed BCRA of 2002:

President Bush

[Kuksool]

Earlier this year, Frist said he will honor his term limit pledge of serving only 2 terms and retire in 2006. The Dem nominee is going to be Harold Ford Jr. I'd like the GOP nominee to be either Ed Bryant or Marsha Blackburn.

[RinaseaofDs]

Fantastic point.

One of the things I was meaning to do today was to see which D Senators voted against CFR.

I'd say that is one HELL of an easy way to appear principled in an election year - come out and say that your opponent voted for the Incumbent Protection ACT and gutted the 1st Amendment.

I could use that as the basis of saying that if he/she was willing to gut the first, then if you love your gun, vote for me because I'll fight to protect the 2nd, 4th, and 5th.

This is GWB's 'Read my lips' moment. He promised not to vote for it in the election, did it anyway, and then had the thing turned to granite tablet law by the monkeys on the SCOTUS.

[unsycophant]

Hi watts. Where are the Dems crowing about this great victory? I haven't seen it. Have you?

Wouldn't you expect them to be gloating about this and lording it over the opposition?

Why aren't they? I think this is something we should be reminding people of more. For a group who was just handed a fabulous victory--they are sure quiet. We know why.

[texastoo]

They will be broadcasting big time on the Mexican media.

[Hoverbug]

Saving our country from a full-blown takeover by socialist leaders is MY long-term goal.

Yes, in order to save the village Bill of Rights, we must destroy it.

</ sarcasm>

Hb

[GOPcapitalist]

They have no intention of obeying this law. Once this gets in their way, they will simply shop around for a judge to let them bypass it, or they'll just ignore it altogether. At the same time, they'll hold Republicans to it.

You are exactly right. The Dems have experience with that kind of stuff because they've been doing it for decades in the black churches.

Every other church in the nation has to abide by strict requirements to be non-political or risk having their tax exempt status revoked. Not so with black churches though. All it takes is for Clinton or any other rat to come to town and they temporarily convert into a campaign headquarters for the duration.

[GOPcapitalist]

The very worst thing a president can do for his reelection chances is to ignore his base. He's acting just like his daddy did in 1992 and we all know where that got us: disillusioned republicans jump ship for Perot and we get 8 long and painful years of bubba.

[Tamzee]

Save your sarcasm, he didn't like all the provisions, said so quite clearly and stated that the courts would have to review the legalities Unfortunately our Constitution doesn't allow the President to completely ignore Congress and craft the laws entirely to his own preference. Regarding the demand for a Presidential veto, March 2002 wasn't exactly an optimal time for him to stomp all over Congress, we didn't have our Congress majority yet and were only a few months out of 9/11. Why spend political power when the Supreme Court should have overturned it?
---

President Signs Campaign Finance Reform Act
Statement by the President

Today I have signed into law H.R. 2356, the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002." I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for Federal campaigns.

The bill reforms our system of financing campaigns in several important ways. First, it will prevent unions and corporations from making unregulated, "soft" money contri-butions -- a legislative step for which I repeatedly have called.

Often, these groups take political action without the consent of their members or shareholders, so that the influence of these groups on elections does not necessarily comport with the actual views of the individuals who comprise these organizations. This prohibition will help to right that imbalance.

Second, this law will raise the decades-old limits on giving imposed on individuals who wish to support the candidate of their choice, thereby advancing my stated principle that election reform should strengthen the role of individual citizens in the political process.

Third, this legislation creates new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of information to the public regarding the activities of groups and individuals in the political process.

I long have believed that complete and immediate disclosure of the source of campaign contributions is the best way to reform campaign finance.

These provisions of the bill will go a long way toward fixing some of the most pressing problems in campaign finance today. They will result in an election finance system that encourages greater individual participation, and provides the public more accurate and timely information, than does the present system. All of the American electorate will benefit from these measures to strengthen our democracy.

However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R. 2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to political parties in connection with Federal elections.

I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.

I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election. I expect that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.

As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary political activities undertaken by their leadership.

Individuals have a right not to have their money spent in support of candidates or causes with which they disagree, and those rights should be better protected by law. I hope that in the future the Congress and I can work together to remedy this defect of the current financing structure.

This legislation is the culmination of more than 6 years of debate among a vast array of legislators, citizens, and groups. Accordingly, it does not represent the full ideals of any one point of view.

But it does represent progress in this often-contentious area of public policy debate. Taken as a whole, this bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law.

GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 27, 2002.

[Tamzee]

Your plan is better? Encourage people to stop supporting the GOP and let a unapologetic socialist take over the White House? How does that promote conservativism exactly?

[Hoverbug]

If you had to vote between Hitler for President or Hillary for President, whom would you vote for?

Hb

[Tamzee]

When was the last time we had a rightwing President that wasn't savaged by conservatives for not being "conservative enough"? Even Reagan suffered the same type of criticism showered on Bush, and Bush, Sr.? Conservatives bolted entirely and smugly handed the country over the America-hating Clinton.

It seems no GOP president is ever satisfactory to the right-wing... I'm surprised the GOP hasn't given up entirely and moved dramatically toward the center. Wait...

[Tamzee]

Back to your childish "there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats"...

[Hoverbug]

I believe there are numerous differences, and have never said there are no differences. You throw around baseless charges pretty easily. There are no differences between the two in certain areas though.

My question is a hypothetical one taking the choice to extremes in order to ascertain if there is a point at which you would abandon your stance of, "if I don't vote for 'X', then I'm responsible for putting 'Y' in office."

It is a moral dilemma, isn't it!?

Dodge it if you like.

Hb

[Hoverbug]

BTW, there is a difference between R's and D's, just as there are differences between Hitler and Hillary. Hillary has never conducted a holocaust just to name one.

I chose Hitler and Hillary BECAUSE of their differences, and you accuse me of making a "no difference" argument? You are way off base.

Hb

[Tamzee]

Ahhh, yes... sorry, I've just spent several hours discussing Bush with several Freepers who DO seem to think there is no difference between the two. So what you propose with your (still silly) hypothesis is that the choice is really between two evils. Do you want an honest answer? If I had to choose between voting for Hillary or Hitler and only one of the two could win, I would vote for Hillary. That would only occur, however, after I used every breath in my body to convince the other 99.999999% of the electorate who loved the two why this was a bad choice.

In our system of government, the only way those two would be the choice is if the majority of the electorate supported them. This is a BOTTOM-UP system of government, not a TOP-DOWN as we would have in a monarchy. If the bottom put forward those two candidates, conservatives have obviously failed to spread our values... probably to the point of no return. How is that anyone's fault but our own?

[Hoverbug]

Thanks for the honest reply.

The difference between you and me is that I would NEVER vote for her.

In our system of government, the only way those two would be the choice is if the majority of the electorate supported them

I think you're wrong here. It's my belief that the only way this hypothetical election could ever come about is after a few cycles of being manipulated into "voting for the lesser of two evils" instead of voting for the person you supported.

And that has just been made easier to do by CFR being implemented.

Hb

[samtheman]

The media is the key. The media is the loophole. Conservative groups have to follow the lead of NRA and start proclaiming themselves media.