Posted on 06/01/2010 1:47:05 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
In February 1996, then–White House aide and current Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan co-authored a memorandum to deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes regarding whether President Clinton should support proposed amendments to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill.
The first amendment was to weaken the bill’s ban on “bundling” of contributions. The memorandum’s analysis of the proposal begins: “We have no data on which party benefits more from bundling practices.” The second amendment was to limit out-of-state contributions to candidates. The memo’s analysis begins: “The [limit] may hurt Democratic senatorial candidates.” In other words, the memo evaluated the amendments not on the basis of their benefits or harms to the public, but rather their potential to confer a partisan advantage.
This is not surprising to those who follow campaign-finance-reform efforts closely. A key goal of every “reform” bill has been partisan gain. Fast forward 14 years to January 2010, when the Supreme Court, in an eminently sensible decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, held that corporations and unions have the right under the First Amendment to speak out in political races. (The government, represented by Kagan, who was then the solicitor general, had argued that it had the power to ban books and movies if they were distributed or produced by corporations, although the solicitor general went to some length to assure the Court that in practice it would not ban books, only “pamphlets.”) The immediate response of the White House and Democrats in Congress was to assess the effect of the decision on their electoral prospects. And they didn’t like the assessment. NPR’s Nina Totenberg summed up the conventional Democratic wisdom on the ruling: “It will undoubtedly help Republican candidates since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more.”
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
Will any of our usually nutless senators have the nads to bring this up during confirmation?
Oh, and just an aside-McCain-Feingold, the gift that keeps on giving (spit). Thanks, "Maverick".
And Orrin Hatch will STILL vote to confirm.
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