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RealCampaignReform.org - Fighting the Good Fight
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Dear friends,
Today, we have a David Broder op-ed. I find this one
particularly fun and refreshing. David Broder
believes in good government. David Broder is a
liberal. And while I'm not familiar with every media
personality in town that supported McCain-Feingold -
since 95% of them did - I can only vouch for the fact
that he wasn't part of the opposition.
But now, Broder is declaring McCain-Feingold a
failure. And as if that's not enough, he's saying
campaign finance reform is a dud - it can't work.
A government program that can't work; where have you
heard that before?
Broder is a good writer, and near as I can tell, an
honest man. It's not surprising to me that he'd be
one of the first good government guys to declare
campaign finance reform a failure. What surprises me
is that ANY member of the good government crowd is
admitting it.
This legislation, including the do-good, allegedly
pro-democracy sentiment it represented, was a crown
jewel of liberalism. Liberals are rarely concerned
with outcomes - only with gushy sentimentality. This
legislation proved they meant well.
And Broder is saying that's not enough. We say, "Good
for him."
But before we get to Broder's column, we have some
important news to share!
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A New Mission and A New Name for RealCampaignReform.org
-- DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
For Immediate Release: May 27, 2004
On Friday, May 28, RealCampaignReform.org (RCR)
Secretary, Stephen Willis, will travel to the bank,
marking the ceremonial change of RCR to the new
DownsizeDC.org, Inc (hereafter, the Organization).
RCR President Jim Babka points out that this isn't
merely a name change. "For three years, we've fought
for the First Amendment. Before the U.S. Supreme
Court we argued that every individual American had
the right to Freedom of the Press. While a slim
majority of the Court rejected our argument, we're
holding firm. RealCampaignReform.org will give,
'Every man and woman a press!'"
Early this year, RCR accepted an invitation from the
American Liberty Foundation (ALF) to celebrate a
common vision - Downsize DC. ALF is also changing its
name -- to the Downsize DC Foundation (hereafter, the
Foundation). The Organization will utilize the issue
development work of the Foundation to aggressively
educate the public on hot issues of the day, using
the Internet and radio ads.
And, following the model of MoveOn and the 1999
Libertarian Party project Know Your Customer, it will
give voice to potentially tens of thousands of
Americans who can tell Congress to make government
smaller.
"Our elected representatives constantly hear from
lobbyists seeking government favors, but they almost
never hear from the taxpayers who fund those
giveaways," said Babka, "So the lobbyists win and you
lose. Government grows and liberty shrinks. And the
day of federal bankruptcy grows closer and closer. We
won't speak for the people. We intend to give each
individual taxpayer their voice - to open up the door
to their particular Congressman."
RCR was the organizing plaintiff for the Paul v. FEC
case, consolidated in McConnell v. FEC. The Paul
plaintiff group contended that the Freedom of the
Press made the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002
(BCRA) unconstitutional. The Supreme Court announced
its decision in December. And while the decision was
narrowly lost, it seemed evident to observers that
the Paul Plaintiffs had been a positive influence on
at least one other plaintiff group and had made an
impact with at least four of the justices.
The name change was approved earlier this month by
the State of Virginia, where the Organization is
incorporated.
RCR Board Chair John McAlister is excited by the
change. "As a city councilman, I've fought to reign
in government. I know that the people's voice can
make a difference. And that's why I'm excited by the
new Downsize DC. As RealCampaignReform we fought to
give small government-minded challengers and third
party candidates the ability to get their message out
by attacking the incumbent protection act called
BCRA. With our lawsuit over, the public education and
proprietary lobbying system of DownsizeDC.org is the
next logical step to take - giving the people their
own voice."
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What McCain-Feingold Didn't Fix
By David S. Broder
Thursday, May 20, 2004; Page A29
http://tinyurl.com/36wkm
It was barely more than two years ago that Congress
passed its latest version of campaign finance reform.
The legislation, best known by the last names of its
Senate sponsors, John McCain and Russ Feingold, was
widely hailed as the greatest advance in a generation
in cleansing the political system of the corrupting
effects of money. Now, in the first election under
the new regulations, here is what we see:
For the first time, the nominees of both major
parties have discarded public financing of their pre-
convention campaigns. Instead, George Bush and John
Kerry have entered a free-spending competition and
have shattered all fundraising records.
Second, the money chase by members of Congress has
reached what Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper,
called "dizzying new heights." The Federal Election
Commission reported that by the end of March, House
and Senate candidates had raised $583 million -- one-
third more than at a comparable point two years ago.
Third, a whole new category of groups -- allied with
but formally separate from the party -- has sprung up
to raise hundreds of millions of additional dollars
for the presidential campaign. These "527"
organizations (named for the section of the tax code
under which they're organized) are collecting the
same huge "soft money" contributions that were
outlawed by McCain-Feingold, from many of the same
individuals and groups.
To be sure, these are not the only effects of the
legislation. As Fred Wertheimer, the veteran "clean
government" lobbyist, points out, you must also count
one positive accomplishment. No longer can federal
officials personally solicit six-figure donations
from people with a powerful interest in issues
pending before Congress. But he quickly adds,
"Instead of the money being solicited by federal
officials, it is being collected by their natural
allies and longtime associates."
Beyond that questionable achievement, Wertheimer can
cite only one other positive result of the
legislation: Both parties -- but especially the
Democrats -- have learned that they can thrive
without soft money. Thanks to the Internet and to
more systematic solicitation of small donors,
Democrats and Republicans have found far more "hard
money" (regulated small contributions) than they
thought was available.
Nonetheless, McCain-Feingold is one more chapter in a
long history of campaign finance regulation. Once
again, unanticipated consequences of new rules are
largely subverting their intended purposes.
What happened to the promise of this latest reform?
It has been undercut by its backers' inability to
foresee two changes in the real world.
They did not anticipate the phenomenal success of
Internet fundraising, demonstrated first by Howard
Dean and now by Bush and Kerry. Succumbing to
Democratic fears that the abolition of soft money
would leave their party unable to cope with Bush's
fundraising machine, the reformers in Congress (most
of them Democrats) doubled the limits on hard money
contributions to $2,000.
That doubled Bush's take and also created an
incentive for Dean and Kerry to follow Bush in
abandoning the system of publicly financed primary
campaigns, with its limits on pre-convention
spending. Now it's likely that all future candidates
for presidential nominations who hope to be taken
seriously will shun public financing and go for the
green -- exactly the opposite of what the reformers
intended.
Second, they did not anticipate that the ban would
simply divert the flow of big contributions into
other channels. Concerned about the constitutionality
of limiting free-speech rights of advocacy
organizations, the sponsors did not include a ban on
soft-money contributions to nonparty groups.
Democrats quickly seized on that opportunity by
creating 527s. These groups are nominally independent
of the party. But one is headed by Harold Ickes, who
ran Democratic politics from the Clinton White House;
another, by Steve Rosenthal, the former political
director of the AFL-CIO.
Wertheimer claims the FEC is derelict in allowing the
527s to operate this way. He may be right, but last
week the agency voted for a 90-day delay in imposing
new regulations -- tantamount to a pass for this
election cycle. Republicans who had been pressing to
shut them down now say they have no choice but to
create their own 527s.
The reality, as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a
leading critic of McCain-Feingold, has argued, is
that in a country like ours, with its constitutional
guarantees and its welter of interests, it is
virtually impossible to control the flow of money
from the private sector into the political world. Any
regulatory scheme is likely to be quickly
circumvented if it is not countermanded by the courts
or the administrative agencies.
The best one can hope is that new rules do not
produce more unintended negative consequences than
benefits. McCain-Feingold is flunking that test.
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RCR Report is the email advisory service of
RealCampaignReform.org -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan,
educational and lobbying organization dedicated to
promoting free and open elections and a robust,
participatory democracy for all Americans.
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