Posted on 03/27/2002 6:23:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Today I have signed into law H.R. 2356, the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002." I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for Federal campaigns.
The bill reforms our system of financing campaigns in several important ways. First, it will prevent unions and corporations from making unregulated, "soft" money contri-butions -- a legislative step for which I repeatedly have called.
Often, these groups take political action without the consent of their members or shareholders, so that the influence of these groups on elections does not necessarily comport with the actual views of the individuals who comprise these organizations. This prohibition will help to right that imbalance.
Second, this law will raise the decades-old limits on giving imposed on individuals who wish to support the candidate of their choice, thereby advancing my stated principle that election reform should strengthen the role of individual citizens in the political process.
Third, this legislation creates new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of information to the public regarding the activities of groups and individuals in the political process.
I long have believed that complete and immediate disclosure of the source of campaign contributions is the best way to reform campaign finance.
These provisions of the bill will go a long way toward fixing some of the most pressing problems in campaign finance today. They will result in an election finance system that encourages greater individual participation, and provides the public more accurate and timely information, than does the present system. All of the American electorate will benefit from these measures to strengthen our democracy.
As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary political activities undertaken by their leadership.
Individuals have a right not to have their money spent in support of candidates or causes with which they disagree, and those rights should be better protected by law. I hope that in the future the Congress and I can work together to remedy this defect of the current financing structure.
This legislation is the culmination of more than 6 years of debate among a vast array of legislators, citizens, and groups. Accordingly, it does not represent the full ideals of any one point of view.
But it does represent progress in this often-contentious area of public policy debate. Taken as a whole, this bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 27, 2002.
Yup, we disagree. Excuse me while I go shake my pom-poms for our CinC in a time of war. Do look me up in a year or two and we'll discuss the news again.
As I and many others (here particularly) predicted, Karl Rove's ill-advised attempt to triangulate from the supposed right is failing miserably.
These 'experts' left one huge thing out of their calculation...the fact that the conservatives are actually driven by their constitutional and moral principles, unlike the Dems, who barely made a peep when Slick signed off on the Republican agenda items (that were contrary to the Dems pseudo-principles) for purely political reasons.
The effects of this decision are going to be felt in Republican politics for many years.
No need to march anywhere when the General surrenders the entire army to the enemy...all you have to do is stack arms, and march off to the camp.
By the way, many of us are working our hearts out to regain control of the Senate. This decision does nothing but hurt that effort.
Politicians' fans are the same no matter which party they prefer. W's "strategery" is to quietly knife every conservative in the back over the course of the next two and a half years. Thank God that's all the time he has to do it.
Try another pair of reading glasses or a calendar. This is 2002. Jim Robinson set up my membership himself last year as I didn't know HTML and hadn't managed to join when I found the FReepers during the post election fight in 2000.
I bought tickets to the FReeper Count the Silverware Inaugural Ball, but couldn't get a cab in the sleet to take us to it after President and Mrs. Bush did their turn at the Ronald Reagan building Inaugural Ball. Went to some Fresno FReeps for the troops last year before my health took another bad turn.
Total volunteer. No basement. Contributed gobs of money and my time to get rid of Clinton/Gore and put an honest and decent man in the Presidency. I'm still waving pom-poms for him. I didn't vote for a clone. I wanted someone more savvy than me to make the tough calls.
You do know what year this is...right?
Back to minding my own biz.
If it gets tossed out by SCOTUS (preferably 9-0), that's a fine thing. Bush still signed it, however.
Not as bad as ten years ago. But where does MIDDLE AMERICA get their news from? How deep does Fox News and Rush and Matt Drudge penerate middle America, as opposed to the choir?
And there's a war on!
So we must support Bush no matter what, or else Jones will come back!
Then again, what do facts like that matter to you? You didn't get your political suicide charge, so you deicded to run off and have a temper tantrum, and forget the consequences.
You either don't understand the form of government we have or you don't care in the least how it gets perverted as long as the right social club has ins at the moment.
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