Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

President Signs CFR Act, Statement by the President 3/27/2002
whitehouse ^ | 3/27/2002 | President George W. Bush

Posted on 03/27/2002 6:23:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW

President Signs Campaign Finance Reform Act


Statement by the President

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.

However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R. 2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to political parties in connection with Federal elections.

I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.

I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election. I expect that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cfr; cfrlist; presidentbush; silenceamerica
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 301-320321-340341-360361-371 last
To: hchutch
Leaving Olsen and Ashcroft to do a job that should have been handled in the Executive Branch is no excuse. He has made them accomplices to his selfishness and unconstitutional act. Why is a president even given veto power if he doesn't intend to use it? Clinton sure used it against legislation he didn't like. Why can't this president act like a man and use this veto power instead of being afraid of the opposition.
361 posted on 03/29/2002 1:23:10 PM PST by RamsNo1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 353 | View Replies]

To: Twodees
CinC made the decisions on who to send to the field, what tack to take in the fight, and the main decision to take it to the Supreme Court, which you as a purist probably puked over at the time.

When you say Dubya never worked a day in his life, you give yourself away as someone who has never supported him.
I used to have to post the list of his summer jobs during college and the jobs he had afterwards before he began his own business in order to counter the seminar BushBashers like yourself during the Election.

For someone as imbued with anti-Bush myths as yourself, discussion is useless.

362 posted on 03/29/2002 1:28:36 PM PST by patriciaruth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 328 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
What are you talking about, a "20 second soundbite"? W is the President. He can sit in front of a camera for as long as it takes to explain his position. The opposition are the ones who have to rely on soundbites.

Boy, you're giving every argument you can think of for why we need to just give up. Do me a favor, will you? Go join the democrats. They need some of your input on how to give in and kiss butt. Maybe if your strategy catches on with them, we'll be rid of them in a few election cycles.

If the GOP can't carry their own banner and advance their own agenda when they have the White House and the House of Representatives, then they need to all just take their dumb asses home and get out of politics.

That's assuming that the GOP stands for any of the principles you seem to think they do. I don't have any such illusions. These traitors are deliberately trying to get things back to where they were before they accidentally won both houses of Congress. Back then they could keep growing government by leaps and bounds while pretending to oppose it.

363 posted on 03/29/2002 1:41:40 PM PST by Twodees
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 332 | View Replies]

To: patriciaruth
There's nothing to "give away" about my history of never supporting Bush. Are you trying to say now that only those who voted for him have the standing to criticise him? he never has worked a day in his life. That is a fact.

Post any of his emplyment history you like. I've been a worker since I was 13 years old. I have started and run a business. A no show paycheck job as a "clerk" for a law firm and investing some inherited money into a false front "energy company" isn't going to fly. Bush is a politician, he just started his career a few years later than most. He had to get sober before he could run for office you know.

You're right about one thing: it's useless to try to covert someone who looks with disdain on the cult of celebrity you belong to. No offense to you personally ma'am, but idolizing politicians is what allows the political class to destroy our country. You really should stop carrying water for them. They don't appreciate it and will simply use you until you're of no more use.

364 posted on 03/29/2002 4:44:00 PM PST by Twodees
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 362 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
You're blaming conservatives who refuse to vote for Wobbly after all his betrayals for Clinton winning in '92. Reagan won two landslides back to back. A conservative candidate in either '92 or '96 would have buried Clinton. It was the GOP's insistence on keeping Wobbly on the ticket that gave us Clinton in '92 just as it was the GOP's insistence on anointing Dole which gave us Clinton again in '96.

You keep saying we need to elect more conservatives to Congress. Tell me how you propose to do that when the GOP insists on running people like Liddy Dole? The GOP doesn't want conservatives in office. They have been doing their utmost to drive conservatives out of their party ever since Reagan won his second term.

The GOP's old line party elite saw to it that Reagan was an anomoly. They'll never let that happen again. This "pragmatic" crap you boys have been handing us about "principled losers" has worn so thin that it only has one side. The GOP is the main obstacle to conservatism in the US. Bush's presidency should be the final proof of that.

365 posted on 03/29/2002 4:57:42 PM PST by Twodees
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 352 | View Replies]

To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Farmer Jones in "Animal Farm". Remember, "four legs good, two legs baaaaaad."? Sounds exactly like any party pompom shaker.
366 posted on 03/29/2002 5:00:53 PM PST by Twodees
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 356 | View Replies]

To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
So we must support Bush no matter what, or else Jones will come back!

Paula Jones?

No, Farmer Jones. From Animal Farm.

My reply was to someone who'd referenced 1984, so I referenced Animal Farm. I wondered how many would "get it." Surely, most here have read Orwell's Animal Farm?

Every time the pigs removed another liberty, and the animals grumbled, Squealer would explain: "Do you know what would happen if Comrade Napolean didn't cut rations? Why, Jones would come back! You don't want that, do you Comrades?"

Farmer Jones became the great Boogeyman, the excuse for every totalitarian act. Every regime has one. Liberals (as opposed to Leftists) put up with Clinton's tyranny for fear that "Reaganism would come back!"

Lately, every statist policy, advanced by conservatives or Leftists, is justified by "the war on terror." If we don't [fill in the blank] Osama will have won! The terrorists will have won!

We're at war, comrades! We must support everything X does, or Osama will win! You don't want that, do you comrades?

In the 1990s, everything statist action was "for the children." Now it's because "there's a war on."

Usually nonsense statist lies.

367 posted on 03/29/2002 5:34:56 PM PST by Commie Basher
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 356 | View Replies]

To: Twodees
I never thought I'd have to tell a GD BushBasher on Free Republic that they were a GD liar. You say George W. Bush never did a lick of work in his life. "That's a fact," you say, you lying sack.

Here's the truth:

Summer jobs he held before and during college:
1) department store sports equipment salesman,
2) ranch hand,
3) roughneck on oilrig,
4) mail delivery boy for a business.

After college he received a paycheck for scrambling his F-102 fighter jet with interceptor missiles while pulling much night duty. Like when the Air Force called they had UFO to be checked out, he would go up during the Cold War, just like the guys flying over D.C. and New York are doing now during the War on Terror.
I assume you mean that guys in the Guard and the Military are all lazy bums who don't do a lick of work.

While on reserve (he had a six year hitch in the Texas Guard), he also worked in a business selling tropical plants, an entry level job in company management requiring selling on the road.

He volunteered in a mentoring program in an inner city project one summer.

After getting his MBA from Harvard, an advanced degree which requires no work, (like graduating in history from Yale requires no work), he ran his own business. And as a business owner, I know that certainly required no work when I had three employees. He had fifteen employees and met all his payrolls.

He never worked a lick as general manager of the Rangers. Just sat in the stands at every game and waved to the crowd and talked with the fans and went to all those public events and meetings promoting the Rangers.

He never worked a lick as the only two term Governor of Texas. The stupid taxpayers paid him for nothing.

The presidential campaign was a cake walk. He never worked hard enough to earn your stupid vote, that's for sure.

And he doesn't work a lick as President. Cheney does it all, from the cave, right?

You are one first class jerk.

368 posted on 03/30/2002 1:21:05 AM PST by patriciaruth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 364 | View Replies]

To: Commie Basher
Thanks. I read part of the book in college. If any terrorist comes after me, hopefully I will be gunned up by then.
369 posted on 03/30/2002 3:32:58 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 367 | View Replies]

To: patriciaruth
Allright, ma'am. Maybe he has worked a day or two. He sure isn't much for holding a job though, is he? You might want to try to control your temper. Calling names here will get you in trouble with the management. So will using profanity. You've done the first and are barely able to restrain yourself from the second. Take a break and calm down.
370 posted on 03/30/2002 7:39:56 AM PST by Twodees
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 368 | View Replies]

To: Twodees

For whatever reason, this keeps coming up when I hit the previous page button on my phone.

It is fun to take a refresher on history tho...


371 posted on 07/24/2021 4:20:18 PM PDT by rottndog (What will you do after America? )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 370 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 301-320321-340341-360361-371 last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson