Posted on 02/10/2004 3:13:14 PM PST by Libloather
Democrats' fundraising ruse undercuts election reforms
Tue Feb 10, 7:27 AM ET
For decades, Democrats championing campaign finance reforms blamed Republicans for blocking efforts to curb the influence wealthy donors have on politics. And Republicans readily conceded they opposed limits that might curtail their advantage in raising money from deep-pocketed allies.
Now, two years after passage of the biggest reform of campaign financing in a generation, the parties have reversed roles: Democrats are spearheading efforts to bypass a ban on huge donations. Republicans are crying foul - though they're preparing to use the same fundraising ploy if the Federal Election Commission upholds it. The FEC could make an initial ruling next week.
The GOP may be driven by political self-interest. Democrats are hurt more by the new law because they depended heavily on now-outlawed funds. But Republicans make the right argument: Strict enforcement of the law can ensure that the clout of corporations, unions, trade groups and rich individuals is curbed as the reforms intended.
The law bans donations to the political parties that are used to promote campaigns. In each of the past two elections, those unlimited contributions, known as "soft money," brought in nearly $500 million.
To evade the new restrictions, partisan activists and wealthy donors are setting up groups that nominally are independent of the parties, a maneuver they claim exempts them from fundraising limits and public-disclosure requirements. But the groups' plans for massive partisan advertising campaigns are indistinguishable from activities by the parties that now are illegal. In fact, many of the groups' leaders are party operatives hiding behind new names.
More than a dozen such organizations spent a combined $1.5 million in TV ads during last month's Iowa-caucus campaign. But most are focused on the general-election campaign rather than the primaries underway. Some examples:
International financier George Soros has pledged at least $15 million to groups dedicated to electing Democrats and defeating President Bush. Other seven-figure donors are on board. Two groups alone claim $60 million in donations and pledges.
One group, America Coming Together, was formed by a coalition of unions and pro-Democratic advocacy groups and is headed by a former political director of the AFL-CIO, Steve Rosenthal. It is designed to be a conduit for large labor donations.
To counter the Democrats, groups aligned with GOP congressional leaders and the Bush campaign are forming under names such as Americans for a Better Country. They are primed to collect megachecks from corporations and affluent Republicans.
Defenders of these groups say the new law only limits donations to the parties, not to independent political organizations.
Yet the claim of "independence" by high-profile partisans is a transparent ruse. While Democrats on the FEC have delayed action on the issue, some GOP members are hinting they will try to stop this new legal evasion before it gets out of hand. That is an encouraging sign from an agency that traditionally looks the other way when the parties stretch campaign finance rules.
Although the GOP has put up roadblocks to campaign finance reform in the past, now it can help ensure that restrictions on special-interest donations remain in place.
Soros Got Money Out of Politics?
January 13, 2004
George Soros supported campaign finance reform saying he wanted to get the money out of politics. He then gave millions of dollars to MoveOn.org, which has a new ad showing Bush pulling the rug out from under senior citizens and knocking them down. You can hear and see this ad in the links below.
That ad is actually tame when you consider another one entered into their contest that compares Bush to Hitler. Soros denied the comparison on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports Monday night, even though he was quoted as doing so in the Washington Post. You can hear excerpts from the interview in the audio link below.
The question Wolf forgot to ask, or maybe didn't have time to ask, would have been, “How can you finance campaign finance reform to take the money out of politics and then put up your millions to affect politics? Aren't you being a little hypocritical?” I would have loved hearing the answer to that question, but it wasn't asked.
He did get that exact question on another show, I think from Lisa Meyers. The answer (my paraphrase): "I comply with the law. If people are unhappy with that, let them change the law."
Congress would have us believe they are preventing corruption, or the appearance of corruption. Justice Scalia wrote: "But let us not be deceived. While the Government’s briefs and arguments before this Court focused on the horrible “appearance of corruption,” the most passionate floor statements during the debates on this legislation pertained to so-called attack ads, which the Constitution surely protects."
Tell the public what BCRA would do: imprison those who would start another political party, imprison those who would mention a legislator by name in a televised ad. How many people over the last 225 years would be found guilty under BCRA'S terms?
Justice Thomas was the lone jurist opposed to the disclosure provisions of BCRA 201 that allows “the established right to anonymous speech to be stripped away based on the flimsiest of justifications.”
Ironic, isn't it, that elected officials can only be spoken of as "he whose name cannot be spoken" while established corporations and unions must assume a false identity and perform compuslsory ventriloquism to speak publicly, and that individuals cannot remain anonymous.
An analogy to our nations' early days could be posed in which anonymous essays written by "Publius" were published in New York newspapers. Several of our Founding Fathers, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, could have been subject to federal penalties and imprisonment under BCRA.
What's frightening is that Congress will be looking to restrict further our rights of speech and association. The record is clear that more legislation is forthcoming.
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