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June 27, 2007
Campaign Finance Claptrap
By Mark DavisIn 2004, Wisconsin Right to Life sought to run ads designed to spur phone calls to the state's two U.S. senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, urging them not to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees.
An understandable wish. Pro-lifers would have an interest in a clear path for Bush nominees in the hope of building a court that will strike down Roe vs. Wade, which made abortion a federal right in 1973.
Pro-choicers might have a similar interest in blocking such nominees, and those groups might wish to run ads to spur grassroots efforts in that direction.
Messages from both sides would seem to be textbook examples of free speech. But Wisconsin's own Mr. Feingold, partnered with occasional Republican John McCain, fashioned the bill that robbed Wisconsin Right to Life - and countless other groups and individuals - of their First Amendment rights of political speech.
The unconscionable McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws placed stupefying limits on what people and groups may say leading up to elections. The Founding Fathers would surely be stunned by the very existence of radio and TV today, but once their wonder wore off, they would be equally shocked to learn that government had stripped away so much of the right of citizens to use those modern wonders for their greatest civic value: political advocacy.
Led by a slim majority that honors those founders, the U.S. Supreme Court this week has loosened some of the stranglehold on corporate and union ads running close to elections.
McCain-Feingold restraints included some unfathomable limits that kicked in during a campaign's final weeks, the only time many people pay attention. Now, if conservative or liberal interests want to get messages to voters as elections draw near, they will be largely unshackled.
Good start. Now the campaign finance "reform" dragon must be slain once and for all.
America has been hosed into embracing the myth that there is "too much money" in politics. According to whom? Where is the all-powerful tribunal that convenes to determine when people have raised too much, spent too much and thus spoken too much, in pursuit of political office?
The fact is that fundraising is the first evidence of a candidate's marketplace appeal. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani are cashing a ton of checks because their candidacies have more appeal than, say, those of Bill Richardson and Duncan Hunter.
That may change. From computers to fast food to political candidates, market share can be fluid. Goods and services have a right to advertise, as do candidates and causes.
McCain-Feingold may have caught the American public napping, but the Supreme Court was alert enough to begin to dismantle it. Now let's hope justices continue the job, striking down provision after provision that chokes our right to communicate political messages in an election season.
If you need a nudge toward the logic against limiting campaign spending, examine the silliness of the current fawning over a Michael Bloomberg presidential run.
Here is a man with no driving issue, no national constituency, no poll numbers and no appreciable slice of America yearning for him to run. Yet his prospects have sparked weeks of analysis for one reason: His massive wealth means he can compete from day one.
Well, good for him. It's his money, and if he can create public interest, he could be a worthy candidate.
But what if someone with a ton of money wanted to support some noble soul with the heart and mind to be a great president but no desire to whore himself out for two years at a mind-numbing litany of rubber-chicken fundraising dinners?
That door is closed. And that's wrong.
So, death to "campaign finance reform" and the phony limits it imposes. There is only one way to conduct political campaigns in an atmosphere of genuine liberty: Anyone may contribute anything to anyone. The vital adjunct to this is full, instantaneous disclosure, so that every voter would know where every dime came from.
Such a wide-open marketplace is to be embraced, not feared.
