Speech, lies and videotape

If there's one ironclad law in the world of politics, it's the law of unintended consequences. Campaign finance reform has been in the news lately, serving as a prime example of what happens when utopian-minded politicians fail to take heed of this doctrine.

Although there has always been a greater amount of antipathy on the right against campaign finance reform - "reform" usually being code for limitations on political speech and on the donations that fund that speech - new cross-spectrum outrage flared up recently because the Federal Election Commission hinted that it might start regulating internet weblogs.

Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as McCain-Feingold after its two main Senate sponsors), the FEC is empowered to regulate political activity relating to federal elections. New, potentially expansive FEC rules could treat bloggers who simply post a link to a candidate's website like political lobbyists, subjecting their content to all manner of federal regulations and restrictions. In response to these developments, a coalition of blogs from the left-wing Daily Kos to the conservative RedState.org launched a petition to stop the FEC from regulating online journalism, the same way that mainstream print and broadcast news outlets are exempt from McCain-Feingold (read the petition for yourself at OnlineCoalition.com).

What brought us to this mess? Well, we now know that prior to McCain-Feingold's passage, several powerful, moneyed organizations making up the pro-reform lobby launched an "Astroturf" campaign to dupe Congress into believing there was a big, grassroots groundswell for reform amongst the American people. We now know this because one of the men responsible for organizing that campaign, Sean Treglia of the Pew Charitable Trusts, has been caught on tape admitting to it. And if we do what the pro-reform lobbyists so frequently ask us to do - follow the money - it turns out that there are some at NYU indirectly involved in the campaign, too.

Ryan Sager of the New York Post has obtained a tape of Treglia speaking at the University of Southern California in March 2004, and his admissions are damning: "The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot - that everywhere [Congress] looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform." A recent study from the non-partisan Political Money Line shows that toward that end, Pew and a consortium of seven other liberal foundations, including George Soros' Open Society Institute, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation, spent $123 million promoting campaign finance reform between 1994 and 2004.

Treglia said, "The strategy was designed not to hide Pew's involvement ... but most of Pew's funding ... I advised Pew that Pew should be in the background. And by law, the grantees always have to disclose. But I always encouraged the grantees never to mention Pew." Treglia says that all this was "with[in] the letter, if not the spirit of the law." (Both Treglia and Pew now deny any deception took place).

Even if no laws were broken, this is all pretty startling hypocrisy, especially for a foundation that supposedly champions disclosure and "getting the money out of politics."

So just where did all that foundation money end up? Amongst other recipients, some went to liberal media outlets like National Public Radio and The American Prospect magazine for the funding of stories on campaign finance. And some ended up at NYU Law School's William Brennan Center for Justice - according to Sager, the eight liberal foundations donated a total of $8 million to the center between 1994 and 2004.

I spoke with Dorothee Benz, public affairs director for the Brennan Center, on its role in promoting campaign finance reform. She acknowledged that the Center received "a number of grants" from Pew between 1999 and 2001, totaling $1.1 million, and received $500,000 a year later. But Benz insisted that there was "nothing sinister" about this, stating that independent academic organizations frequently accept money for research and promotion of a specific issue like campaign finance reform. These funds went to a Brennan Center report on issue advocacy in the 1998 Congressional elections called "Buying Time," and toward litigation defending McCain-Feingold in court. Asked about Treglia's candid admission of an "Astroturf" reform effort, Benz said that popular support for campaign finance reform has been real, "a concern to many segments of society."

I also asked Benz about a 2001 fund-raising dinner, described on the center's website, at which Sen. John McCain was honored for "his heroic efforts to promote and pass federal campaign finance reform." Benz said the dinner is held annually and is a large source of the center's "unrestricted" funding, though she did not know exactly how much had been raised at this specific event.

Hobnobbing with powerful politicians supportive of their agenda, accepting donations to advocate for specific issues - this is exactly the kind of behavior that Brennan, Pew and the rest of the pro-reform lobby criticize when political interest groups do it. I certainly don't begrudge the reform lobby its attempts to influence the government on an issue it believes in passionately, or even its using a great deal of its financial resources to do so - indeed, this nation was founded on agitation for political change. I just hope that in the future, they'll be equally respectful of everyone else's right to effect that change, and perhaps reconsider their attempts to impose limitations on political speech.

McCain/Feingold is a quarter-step (not even half what it should have been), excellent points in this article. MF (apt initials) seems intended to silence private individuals in our political process. It ignores the real problem, that media controls the medium and sets the prices.

The Swift Boat/Stolen Honor Veterans struggled to have their voice heard in our political process, and only private donations and the Internet saved them. Many in the media tried to portray them as 'not in the spirit of MF' and used it to silence them.

In the next elections illegal immigration will be the "Vietnam War Hero" of the privately funded issues. But only if politicians and media are denied their desire to silence other political speach.

Anything that the press and politicians are BOTH for has got to be bad for us FReepers, and everyone else.

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