Free Republic

The Washington Post reported today that President joked about signing the unconstitutional Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill passed by the Senate last week.Bush, in a statement issued Wednesday night, had expressed misgivings about whether parts of the bill were constitutional but said that he would sign the bill anyway.His decision to sign the bill has kicked up a firestorm of dissent in the conservative community, including a scathing editorial by The Washington Times and a letter from the American Conservative Union signed by 60 conservative leaders.Here is President Bush's comment on signing Shays-Meehan as reported by The Washington Post:Bush did...

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) yesterday postponed a controversial decision on subjecting Internet political speech to campaign-finance regulations, raising the stakes for today’s scheduled House vote on a bill that exempts all blogs, Web ads and other online communications. The heated debate over a proposal by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) to exclude online content from the “public communications” covered by campaign-finance law has engulfed every corner of the political world, splitting both Democrats and Republicans and pitting mainstream editorial boards against left- and right-wing bloggers.The House Rules Committee scheduled a meeting late yesterday to determine the ground rules for debate...

WASHINGTON - When Rep. Roy Blunt was vying for the House majority leader spot in January, conservative bloggers fought for his ear. Blunt, R-Mo., had invited a select group of bloggers to a moderated question-and-answer session. But Republicans John Shadegg of Arizona and John Boehner of Ohio held what the bloggers considered a much more freewheeling chat with them. Mike Krempasky, a blogger at the influential conservative RedState.org, contended Blunt's reticence worked against him in the House leadership race. "Blunt tried to do this in a way that was regimented," Krempasky said. "The more you try to control it, the...

WHEN DOES free speech become an in-kind political ad, the sort that should be regulated by the federal government? That's the question Congress is expected to grapple with tomorrow as it considers a bill that will affect how bloggers, the rapidly influential commentators on the Internet, will be able to operate. In a rare moment of agreement, some of the best- known bloggers from both the right and left of the political spectrum joined together last year in petitioning the Federal Election Commission for greater clarity after a federal judge ruled the FEC couldn't exempt Web sites from campaign-finance laws:...

WASHINGTON — Bloggers are taking on Rep. Christopher Shays over his proposal that campaign-finance rules apply to political Web sites. Operators of political weblogs accused Shays, who has long promoted campaign-finance reform, of seeking to restrict free speech. The liberal http://www.dailykos.com and conservative http://www.redstate.org urged readers to speak out, insisting that online activists should not have to worry about inadvertently running afoul of campaign-finance laws when they are expressing their opinions on the Internet. Last week, Congress took up a bill that would have exempted the Internet from campaign-finance regulations. Shays, R-Conn., and Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., lobbied supporters of...

What a laugh. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law was supposed to limit the torrents of money flowing into political campaigns by eliminating large, unregulated contributions to political parties, known as soft money. Its passage in 2002 was to spell the end of big-money politics. Hah! Since then, President Bush has raised nearly $160-million for his re-election bid. Donors may be following the hard money strictures of McCain-Feingold by giving in $2,000 chunks, but those contributions are often bundled by industry and business interests for maximum influence-buying impact. At the same time, Democrats, who are behind the eight ball on...

A distinguished panel of federal judges struggled mightily with whether to uphold or strike down an Indiana law that requires a disclaimer for political ads that expressly advocate for or against candidates. They upheld the law, but the difficulty for such judicial luminaries as Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook and William Bauer of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month was complicated by two major U.S. Supreme Court decisions that are not easily reconciled. The Indiana law requires political ads to contain “a disclaimer that appears and is presented in a clear and conspicuous manner to give the...

Campaign finance reform enacted in 2002 may restrict some donations, but a huge loophole in the new law is allowing some groups unchecked power in elections across the country. Independent organizations can no longer raise huge sums of unregulated campaign contributions after the 2002 legislation created by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). However, nonprofit groups formed under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service tax code have become important players in many elections. 527s are "considered a loophole in campaign finance reform," political analyst Terry Madonna said. This is the first year that the campaign finance reform has taken effect. The...

<p>The one constant throughout more than 1,000 years of common-law history has been the uncanny ability of clever legal minds to develop strategies to circumvent custom and the decrees of law courts. In many situations, the advent of statute law promulgated by legislative bodies has done little to block this trend. Surely, that has been the case over the past three decades as the flow of political money only escalated in the face of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and its Watergate-era amendments of 1974.</p>

Even as it prepares for yet another attempt to ban unregulated soft money in the form of the modest McCain-Feingold bill, the movement for campaign finance reform is further than ever from its goal of getting money out of politics. That's because passing McCain-Feingold would have little effect in the real world. Much of the $400 million or so in soft money--mostly from corporations and the rich--that deluged Democratic and Republican caches this year would simply be spent in other ways to influence electoral politics. Candidates and political parties would continue to sell their political souls for billions of private...

<p>Few denizens of the Capitol would question that for years, the building's two most influential interest groups have been the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the Indian tribes that own casinos. Both were virtually invisible as political powers until about 15 years ago, but they amassed and spent many millions of dollars, mostly on political campaigns, to acquire hegemony over decisions that affected them. At the apex of their political power, they even set up a joint operation to help friendly politicians gain and hold office.</p>

Stifling free speech WASHINGTON - In opening the Senate debate on campaign finance reform, Republican John McCain asked his colleagues to "take a risk for our country." But his proposals would stifle, not expand, political debate. Congress should instead relax election controls, thereby encouraging more rather than less participation in the democratic process. Building on his highly touted, but unsuccessful run for the White House, Sen. McCain has joined Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., to propose banning so-called "soft money" contributions to political parties and restrict independent issue advertising close to elections. A competing proposal from Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., backed...

<p>TRENTON -- The New Jersey League of Women Voters spoke out last week in favor of publicly funded elections, a day after Assembly Democrats proposed a test run during the next election.</p> <p>Maine and Arizona are the only two states in the country that hold such elections, which allow candidates to opt against raising private donations.</p>

Unfree Speech : The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform by Bradley A. Smith (Sample) Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION On May 31, 1972, a two-page ad appeared in the New York Times that featured the headline "A Resolution to Impeach Richard Nixon as President of the United States." The ad, which cost a total of $17,850, was paid for by a group consisting of several lawyers, at least one law professor, a former United States senator, and a number of other citizens of modest prominence, calling themselves the National Committee for Impeachment. In addition to criticizing President Richard Nixon, the ad recognized...

Reason Is No Guarantee: The Case of Campaign Finance Reform The late Sidney Hook -- who was one of the early dissenters from the American Left on the matter of whether the Soviet Union is worthy of any admiration and loyalty, and a pretty formidable philosopher and scholar in his own right -- had a lament he told me about. We were at the Hoover Institution together, he as a senior scholar, I as a temporary fellow, back in the mid-1970s. On one occasion he told me that the major disappointment in his life had been the discovery that reason...

Shays-Meehan Lawsuit Challenging FEC Rules for Unpaid Broadcasts and Charities Proceeds The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) has the potential to dramatically expand the scope of regulation of federal election activity. The decision did not, however, address the act's applicability to 501(c)(3) charity organizations, which the Federal Elections Commission has already exempted from all BCRA requirements. A suit filed by BCRA co-sponsors Reps. Chris Shays and Marty Meehan to overturn the FEC exemption will now quickly move forward. BCRA prohibits corporations (including nonprofits) and labor unions from paying for broadcasts that refer...

It seems so obvious: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peacefully assemble..." According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "abridge" means "to reduce in scope: diminish." It's difficult to understand how the authors of the First Amendment could have been more plain. Nevertheless, in 2002, Congress passed and the President signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). Among the many provisions of the new law, one specifically bars certain groups from engaging in political speech in the days leading up to an election unless they adhere...

Council to consider 'investment in democracy' BERKELEY -- The City Council took a first look this week at a proposal to use public money -- possibly from higher parking fines or hotel taxes -- to bankroll city elections. But already opposition has arisen to the plan, which could come before voters in November and if approved make Berkeley the first city in the nation to fully fund elections with public money. Running a mayoral or City Council campaign is costly. Mayor Tom Bates spent$230,000, including $90,000 of his own money, in 2002, while council candidates have spent $30,000 to $40,000...

A coalition of Democratic Party interest groups is forming a shadow organization to skirt McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms in pushing the presidential election of John Kerry, according to The Washington Post. The apparatus would allow Democrats to collect from unregulated interest groups through the back door the huge, soft-money donations newly prohibited to political parties. This is a shameful circumvention of the public consensus expressed through McCain-Feingold: a desire to dilute the tremendous influence of wealthy individuals, labor unions and corporations on American politics. Kerry should repudiate the effort, and the Federal Election Commission should nail it for the outright...

Of all of the elements of the First Amendment, the one that should be protected most zealously is the right to free political speech. The additional regulation advocated by USA TODAY would place an undue burden on this right. These new, independent political committees - which under the law do not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate - are taking to task a political position, not a candidate or candidates. This is the valuable role of issue-advocacy groups. It is hypocritical to whine about the lack of "issue politics" in campaigns while hamstringing their expression in the...