Free Republic

<p>The Republican National Committee plans to ask the Federal Election Commission today to ban the raising of $300 million or more in "soft money" by pro-Democratic groups seeking to pay for voter mobilization and TV ads in this year's elections.</p>

Losing Crusade May Still Pay Dividends for a Senator By CARL HULSE and GLEN JUSTICE Published: December 27, 2003 WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 — Senator Mitch McConnell was such a determined opponent of the new campaign finance law that when the fight moved from Congress to the courts, he made certain the decisive case was titled McConnell vs. F.E.C. Now, with the Supreme Court validating the campaign spending restrictions enforced by the Federal Election Commission in a ruling earlier this month, Mr. McConnell will remain strongly identified with the cause, but on the losing side. That twist is not lost on...

The First Amendment is dead. Repealed. History. Do I still have the right to still say that? Better check with the Supreme Court. In a strange decision last week, a 5-4 majority of the court upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, often known as McCain-Feingold. One element of the law bars “soft money” donations to political parties. In other words, even if you want to give a fortune to the Democratic Party, you’ll no longer be allowed to. But political parties hardly matter anymore, because of another provision of McCain-Feingold. The law also bars them, and unions, interest groups...

The reason that backers of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill are likely to be disappointed in its results can be found right at the start of the majority opinion last week upholding the law. Quoting the 1896 words of that icon of the Progressive era, Elihu Root, Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor, the authors of the 5-4 majority opinion, said the new law is designed "to purge national politics of what was conceived to be the pernicious influence of 'big money' campaign contributions." As the Brookings Institution's Thomas E. Mann, a supporter of McCain-Feingold, said at a...