Panel upends campaign finance

Washington Times ^ | 5/03/03 | Stephen Dinan

[kattracks]

A federal panel yesterday struck down or rewrote most of the campaign finance reform law that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law last year.

The three-judge panel overturned restrictions on how and when outside interest groups may run campaign advertisements against federal candidates but wrote new rules that some groups said are just as onerous. The court also overturned the part of the law that prohibits national political parties from raising so-called "soft money," though it upheld the law's ban on using the money to run television advertisements.

[RAT Patrol]

So much for accurate early reporting by the Washington Post.

Oh "Bush is a brilliant strategist" crowd, check out this little fact: " Judge Leon was appointed by the current president.."

[kattracks]

Oh "Bush is a brilliant strategist" crowd, check out this little fact: " Judge Leon was appointed by the current president.."

Like we said, "Bush is a brilliant strategist".

[RAT Patrol]

So it is brilliant to appoint a judge that basically is responsible for retaining the ban on speech in CFR? Hmmm...I must be missing something.

[kattracks]

The law's chief sponsors Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican; Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat; Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican; and Rep. Martin T. Meehan, Massachusetts Democrat issued a joint statement saying the ruling "could create serious loopholes that undermine the law's effectiveness."

If these guys don't like the ruling, I'd say we're ahead.

[The Wizard]

And PMSNBC's Campbell Brown has joined forces with the dark side and uses her air time to attack GWB at every turn, using perjoritive words and phrases, like no one will catch on she's shilling for the democrats

[Law]

Thanks for the post of the Washington Times article. It is more accurate. BTW, in case one of you hasn't seen the original thread on the subject:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/904748/posts

[The Wizard]

"It breaks faith with the fundamental principle — understood by our nation's founding generation, inscribed in the First Amendment and repeatedly reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court — that 'debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,' " she wrote.

SO AT LEAST 1 OF THE THREE HAS READ THE CONSTITUTION

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[RAT Patrol]

SO AT LEAST 1 OF THE THREE HAS READ THE CONSTITUTION Yeah. Too bad one isn't a majority.

[bandleader]

The DemonRats(and McCain)pushed cynically for"McCain/Feingold"with the CERTAIN knowledge that it would NEVER pass Constitutional muster!Now they can just throw up their hands and accept all that"Dirty Campaign Money"!!It's all rather DisGusting the way they(especially The DemonRats"scorn the public(those of us in"Fly Over'sVille")!!!!!!!!!

[spookycc]

"Soft money", "hard money" - it's all fuzzy to me.

I am unclear on what funds fall into what categories. I thought that I read here last month that Dubya didn't use federal funds in the 2000 election - that he raised his own bucks.

But the charts at "opensecrets.org" (which may be a cRAT site, I have no idea) show that Bush used $67,560,000 (35 % of his total) in federal funds.

I don't really care one way or the other - just hoping for a clarification. I never cared about politics prior to 9/11, so a lot of this is still new to me...