The campaign finance overhaul passed by the U.S. Senate yesterday is significant in many respects. It represents the first revision of laws governing the funding of political campaigns since the post-Watergate era in the middle '70s. As many as 11 Republican senators, in voting for the decidedly Democratic bill, have recognized a need for change in a system that they have become so masterful in using.
While the general tenor of reform is welcome in campaign financing, some specific measures passed Wednesday in the overarching McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan bill are flawed, misled and possibly unconstitutional.
Chief among the questionable portions of the legislation is a provision that will outlaw issue advertisements that target specific candidates within 60 days of a general election and within 30 days of a primary. The debate over whether money equals speech will continue in the public discourse of soft money opponents, but there is no gray area in this provision. The issue ad restriction regulates speech, improperly so we might add, and will most likely be struck down by the multitude of lawyers and lawmakers frothing at the mouth to erase these changes to the public record.
Boosters of the soft money ban, the hallmark of this legislation, continue to say that this is not the end of the line for election overhauls. This is a welcome thought, as we are unsure a soft money ban is the ultimate answer in the regulation of electioneering. There have been recent indications that the U.S. Supreme Court would even uphold the soft money ban, but people looking to drop millions in political campaigns will always find ways to grease the proverbial wheels.
There are a few excellent aspects of this legislation, however. The individual hard money limits that voters can give directly to candidate campaigns will be raised from $1,000 to $2,000, the first such boost since the post-Nixon reforms. In addition, hard money contribution limits will also be raised for donations to candidates that face self-financed millionaire office seekers.
We hope that this mood of introspection and constant change in the way we finance political campaigns continues. The measures passed Tuesday by the Senate are not perfect, with some crossing over into unconstitutional territories. This change is necessary because with every law that is passed on this matter, five more loopholes open up. Our political process is too sacred to be put into question by dirty money. That does not mean, however, that the remedies should be anything less than constitutionally proper in their effort to fix a clearly wounded system.
