Posted on 02/21/2002 6:22:01 AM PST by rightwing2
“A Betrayal”
Some advice for Bush on campaign-finance reform legislation.
By NR Editors
From the March 11, 2002, issue of National Review
President Bush is reportedly about to commit a cynical and opportunistic act unworthy of his young presidency: signing a disaster of a campaign-finance-reform bill. The bill, as it seems likely to emerge from Congress, is perfect veto bait for Bush: 1) He thinks it is unconstitutional; 2) it violates the principles for reform that he defended during his campaign and enunciated during last year's legislative debate; and 3) it will discourage exactly the sort of engaged citizenry that Bush devotes so much rhetoric to promoting. But Bush seems ready to ignore all of this and instead heed his own narrow political and financial interests, in a capitulation that will require double-backing on his commitments.
The bill, of course, eliminates the unlimited corporate "soft money" donations to political parties, which are supposed to be especially corrupting. But reformers never bother to explain how it is possible for both parties to be corrupted by soft money, when they advocate diametrically opposed positions on most issues. The implication is that the Republican party's conservatism is bought and paid for, and so is the Democratic party's liberalism. This is a pinched and cynical — not to mention false — way to view the world.
The parties are huge, sprawling national organizations pulled every which way by competing special interests. This is exactly the way politics is supposed to work. The same applies to the legislative and regulatory realms. Almost every victory that Enron — the proximate cause of this latest legislation — won in Washington came by prevailing over some other special interest. The Chicago Board of Trade opposed an Enron-supported regulatory exemption for derivatives trading. The utilities opposed Enron's vision of electricity deregulation.
There's nothing wrong with this, unless you consider petitioning the government and contributing to candidates and parties somehow inherently corrupting, as many reformers do. They talk of the current legislation as a prelude to further efforts to chase private money from politics. As a mere prelude, it is appalling enough. The soft-money ban would make the national political parties poorer, and diminish their influence. The parties would have less money for advertising, voter-registration drives, direct-mail pieces, and so on. More important, they would have less money for supporting challengers, who don't yet have the fund-raising clout of incumbents. The current bill is suspiciously full of such provisions helpful to incumbents.
One of the most notorious would prevent citizens' groups funded with unlimited soft-money donations from running ads mentioning an officeholder by name 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election. This would force smaller advocacy organizations either to go silent during these periods, or go to the expense and trouble of registering as PACs funded only by limited hard-money donations. (Remember when PACs were the reformers' bogeymen? That seems long ago.) In general, a web of new rules for fundraising, advertising, and "coordination" with candidates would tie outside political groups in knots, limiting their flexibility and ultimately their expression.
The optimistic view of all this is that money will inevitably find a way into the system, and so it will. In a free country, it takes more than one sprawling campaign-finance bill to suppress political speech effectively. But every layer of complexity, every new rule requiring the expertise of a campaign-finance lawyer to negotiate, raises the entry fee to politics. It makes it harder for ordinary citizens to get involved, and makes politics more of a game for experts and insiders, who on the Republican side are urging Bush to sign the bill even as they work to invent ways around it.
It is dismaying that Bush has come to this pass. Depending on how closely you want to read his March 2001 letter on campaign finance, the current bill violates any number of the principles he set out for reform. Bush supported a soft-money ban. On the other hand, he wrote that any bill "should help political parties more fully engage citizens in the political process." This bill does no such thing. He wrote that the bill should "protect the rights of citizen groups to engage in issue advocacy." This is exactly the sort of advocacy the bill would hamstring. He wrote that reform shouldn't favor "incumbents over challengers." This bill does. He wrote that it should include provisions protecting shareholders and union members from having their money spent on politics against their wishes. This bill doesn't.
Bush did not fight for one — not one — of these principles during the debate. He, of course, has a war to run. But perhaps he could have taken some time away from, say, touting the "USA Freedom Corps" to try to influence a substantial reworking of the nation's election system, especially one that raises troubling constitutional questions. Even supporters of the bill admit that parts of it are of dubious constitutionality. In an extraordinary abdication of his responsibilities under the Constitution, however, the president will probably sign the bill in part because the courts can be expected to find elements of it unconstitutional. This is why his aides think signing it is so clever — Bush gets the credit for going along, while the bill is sent straight into constitutional limbo.
The expectation that chunks of the bill will be thrown out is probably, although not necessarily, accurate. The soft-money ban is arguably unconstitutional, although the Supreme Court has repeatedly said large contributions can be corrupting. It seems likelier that the 60-day restriction will be judged unconstitutional. And the same goes for the broad and vague provisions defining "coordination" between candidates and outside groups, which kick in a host of other regulations. The Supreme Court has previously made it clear that such restrictions on political speech — the right at the core of the First Amendment — must be extremely narrow and clear-cut. The idea has traditionally been to carve out a broad, easily understood safe harbor for political speech, which is exactly what the campaign-finance bill intends to undercut. But, all that said, there is no guarantee of how the Court will vote, especially given that the closest questions will probably be decided by that weather-vane justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.
All the more reason for Bush not to pass the buck to the Court. But Bush clearly figures he doesn't need what would play in the media as another Enron-related political headache. Meanwhile, he can raise more hard money — the limits for which are doubled by the bill — than any other presidential candidate, so why should he put himself out over the general fortunes of the Republican party, let alone the Democratic party? Finally, his aides are sometimes reported to think that signing the bill would rob John McCain of his signature issue and any chance of mounting an independent bid in 2004. But no one outside the most devoted McCainiacs thinks such a scenario is plausible. The fact is that the public has little interest in campaign-finance reform. Bush would pay little or no political price for giving it the veto it so richly deserves, and asking Congress to send him another version that, at the very least, is clearly constitutional.
But Bush seems likely to listen to the smart set, instead of what one assumes would be his better instincts. Conservatives were forewarned that, for instance, Bush's education policy might not be much to their liking. He had promised as much for two years. His support for an over-regulatory campaign-finance reform would be something different, not just a disappointment, but a betrayal.
I'm sorry, but the trial balloons have been aloft and Bush's people are making noises like he thinking of signing it.
IF HE SIGNS IT - IT BECOMES LAW !
WHAT TIME EXACTLY SHOULD WE GET OUR HACKLES UP IF NOT NOW ?
Pragmatism is right OUT when folks are even talking about curtailing our God given right to free speech.
Or is it O.K. with you if it's just the bad liberals who are muzzled ? Wake up man.
You're wrong, the man has the bully -pulpit.
If he isn't thinking of signing it, he should be explaining it to America NOW that it is un-Constitutional!
He's not stupid, so he's not going to wait untill it's on his desk - if he WASN'T thinking of signing it.
So why can't people just contribute to the politician or the party instead of the interest groups? Is there some advantage to donating to the interest groups?
Well, go ahead. But it won't change one hair on your head to a different color. Right now, it's the Senators we should be after.
If he isn't thinking of signing it, he should be explaining it to America NOW that it is un-Constitutional!
Ummmm.....because he's busy with work overseas? We're fighting a war?
Yes. They lobby for us on specific issues. NRA, RTL, ...etc.
Yes. Coordination and impact.
So what ?
So he NOT supposed to watch the home front against the Socialists bent on our destruction?
Thats weak.
GEORGE WILL: In which case, would you veto the McCain-Feingold bill, or the Shays-Meehan bill?
GEORGE BUSH: That’s an interesting question. I — I — yes I would.
While I'm not prepared to jump on the "IMPEACH DUBYUH" Bandwagon just yet, I fully understand the anger arising from our POTUS signing--and Congress writing--legislation that is so obviously un-Constitutional with the expectation--or hope--that the SCOTUS will fix it. That's why I still expect Dubyuh to veto it...signing it is below him, IMHO.
In the meantime, keep burning up the phone lines!!
FReegards...MUD
Please oh please oh please I hope you're right and that I'm an overblown cynic.
I would love to be wrong about this.
But here's the thing -
WHY ISN'T HE TAKING THE LEAD NOW AND EXPLAINING THE UN-CONSTITUTIONALITY
OF THIS WHILE HE HAS THE HIGH APPROVAL RATINGS AND BEFORE HE HAS TO VETO THE BILL ?
You can't tell me it is because he's "so busy" with other things that he's not had time to address this.
Of course he COULD be doing the really great thing, which would be planning to veto the Communist Manifesto # 2 outright
in their face and THEN explain to the Nation what a rotten thing Congress had served up to him - THAT would be better than watching my Patriots win the Superbowl !!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.