It wasn’t too long ago most people were praising U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).
The dynamic bipartisan duo were working together to clean up the dirty game of politics. They wanted to reform the way campaigns were financed.
“Look at them, they’re so cute working together,” political pundits would say, as a version of their campaign finance reform bill failed five years straight. “A Republican and a Democrat working side-by-side, too bad no politician in his or her right mind would ever vote for the thing.”
But the winds of change have blown in Washington and it will blow the McCain-Feingold bill all the way to the White House onto President Bush’s desk where he will have the chance to sign it into law.
But just as the “aye” votes have changed over the past five years, so has the pundits view of this bill. Their tune isn’t that bipartisan love song of old. Now it’s a tune of outright amazement that anyone in Washington would try to degrade the First Amendment.
McCain and Feingold know how the “Full House” twins (Mary Kate and Ashley Olson) feel now, after a half of a decade of the same old thing – the cuteness factor wears off.
With restrictions on when and where groups can put political ads on television, as well as restrictions on how much individuals can donate to candidates and to the political parties, shouldn’t McCain and Feingold expect criticism?
As the Olson twins used to say, “You got it, dude.”
But it’s important to note that all the criticism and the hype is conjecture. As much as politicians, talk show hosts and columnists like to tout that this bill, or another bill, will boom or bust, they don’t know. No one does.
Once this bill works its way into law, as virtually everyone believes it will, it will take a few years until anyone can tell the effect it actually has.
There’s some worry Republicans will have an easier time raising money because rich people prefer the GOP. But those stereotypes are changing as a recent Washington Post survey revealed more upper-class citizens are voting for Democrats, and Republicans are gaining a larger slice of the working class.
Some worry that political action committees will become even more powerful. Those wonderful organizations with names like “Americans for a Better Millennium” that give you “issue ads” telling you naughty stuff a candidate did but stopping short of advocating a certain candidate.
Because of campaign-finance reform in the post-Watergate era of 1974, PACs came about in the first place putting these “issue ads” on the air that McCain-Feingold will ban 60 days before an election.
Critics think the Buckley vs. Valeo case through which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “strict scrutiny” must be placed on any limits of citizens’ rights to spend on campaigns, will lead to a similar doom of the McCain-Feingold bill.
But a least give the senators some credit. They’re trying to fix a flat tire on an 18-wheeler while it’s still barreling down a mountain at 90 miles per hour.
It’s up to the courts to decide what is and what is not a violation of free speech. There are times in which the Court has seen fit to rule against speech in favor of protecting the rights of the people and maybe they will rule that includes protecting the integrity of elections.
Who knows, maybe this is a second step in the ultimate campaign-finance reform.
A step going exclusively to public funded elections where no union, special interest group or well-to-do individual can have any more influence than the one thing that should be the most important part of any campaign:
You.