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.
Nope. He ain't gonna sign it.
If you win, I can say you're right.
If I win , I expect you to do the same.
He won't sign it.
This reform bill stinks to high heaven, and the longer it is seen as being "in play" (under serious consideration and likely to happen), the more people will realize this.
If Bush says he will veto it, then (some liberal) people will stop considering this bill for what it is, and start thinking of it as a "dead man walking -- a good bill on death row, condemned by Bush, he of the big money interests."
If Bush leaves this bill in play, then some of those folks will begin to see, in various ways, how the bill ain't so hot, and become more ambivalent about it. Heck they might even learn a thing or two.
I sometimes do the same thing when training people at work, or when raising kids. Let them play the hand out, as far as possible, with no reassurance that there is any safety net. That makes the lesson more real. And sometimes, the net isn't needed anyway, and they get the additional reinforcement of having done the right thing, completed the tough task, on their own.
As soon as you even hint that "it's ok -- Daddy will cover for you", the whole dynamics change.
We are in a war between two completely different visions of reality. The Democrats see this clearly and so do Conservatives.
Conventional Republicans (such as Bush, Sr.) do not see it at all. They are moderate "consensus builders" and "better managers". That works for municipal government, but not for the nation's President.
We are about to find out if the son can transcend the father. If he does not, we may win the war on terror but lose our nation anyway.
You mean less than 1%, right. Perhaps. But unprincipled liberals are wiser than conservatives like Lazz. They know we are in a war and stick together even if they don't agree with everything their candidate does. Disgusting? Of course, but they keep moving that ball down the field don't they? So, Lazz would let Hillary Clinton win rather than vote for Bush, right? Give me a break. Until conservatives get smarter and operate as a coalition the liberals will continue to plod along and cram their agenda down our throats.
All this emotion and no one knows what Bush will do. Let's hope Bush does the right thing and vetoes this stupid idiotic bill so we don't lose Lazz and others to whatever reincarnation of Buchanan emerges in 2004. Of course if it's not this vote, it will be something else I suppose that ticks them off. There's just no pleasing everyone.
Thank you for considering the realities of politics!!! Something that seems VERY rare on this board.
Yes. That's what he will do.
People can rant and rave, but Bush will come out smelling like a rose.
Sorry libertarians and DU disrupters. Maybe next "scandle." After all, McVain has already threatoned one. You'll get another chance.
because then I will have the choice between someone who will gut the bill of rights and someone who did gut the bill of rights.
Actions speak much louder than words.
If that's the case, the better move would be to neither sign nor veto.
Good for you. So exactly which electable candidate IS a true conservative in your eyes?? (HINT: Reagan can't run again.)
IF it is a deliberate strategy it is brilliant, and you are right: it's the only way to perform a spine implantation in the Senate. But these retreats, both the Member's only one and the COS one, usually are held out of press earshot to be candid with one another and the administration. That's why it makes me uneasy: normally you wouldn't hear anything about this retreat anywhere in the press, and if partipants think the events are being manipulated they lose their value. Assuming it isn't a deliberate lie, (and Roll Call would normally talk to several sources from different offices to confirm the statement) the administration is taking a risk that folks won't believe what they say in future "let's lay all our cards on the table" meetings.
The only thing for us to do is not get complacent about what Bush will do either way and keep pushing the White House to veto.
I don't think Messr. Bush can afford 'less than 1%' of his voting base.
He won by 500 or so votes.
If he signs the bill, he loses my vote. Cause and effect.
If he signs this bill, he loses my vote. Only two things could subsequently change my mind:
If Bush signs it, how does that differ from Gore signing it?
In both scenarios, the First Amendment is gutted.
If Bush signs this legislation, he loses my vote in 2004.
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