Posted on 04/21/2005 1:11:45 PM PDT by Jean S
Have you been following S. 271? Probably not.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and co-sponsored by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and eight others, including Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), is formally known as the 527 Reform Act of 2005. It might more accurately be known as the Making Our Campaign Finance Laws Even More Counterproductive Act of 2005.
The newest chapter in the ongoing campaign-finance reform farce, the bill would rein in the so-called 527 groups — America Coming Together, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and others — that took over much of the 2004 presidential campaign. It would essentially reclassify those groups as political action committees, meaning that no one would be able to contribute more than $25,000 to any such organization.
“To put it in simple terms, a George Soros could give $25,000 per year to the nonfederal account of a single political committee, as opposed to $10 million,” McCain told the Senate Rules Committee in March.
Campaign-finance reformers claim to be horrified by the amounts of money raised and spent by the 527s in the presidential election. It was, in fact, pretty astonishing.
Consider this: In the last election cycle, just five people — Soros, Progressive Insurance Chairman Peter Lewis, Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing and California investors Herbert and Marion Sandler — spent more than $78 million in their obsessive drive to rid the country of George W. Bush. That was more than the $75 million the federal government gave Bush and Sen. John Kerry to conduct their entire general election campaigns — and nearly all of it went into 527s.
Now consider this: In 1972, insurance executive W. Clement Stone gave $2 million to the reelection campaign of his good friend Richard Nixon. The contribution, which was legal, so horrified campaign-finance reformers that they used it as evidence that the campaign-finance system was hopelessly corrupt and needed to be reformed. They won, passing the campaign-finance laws we have with us today.
Today, adjusted for inflation, Stone’s $2 million contribution would be about $8 million. And one man alone, Soros, spent about $27 million in the drive to defeat Bush.
That kind of giving spurred Republicans to raise the stakes, too, although Republicans waited until near the end of the campaign to put really big money into their 527s.
Yes, reform has gotten us a long way. And the reformers can cry all they want about the “unintended consequences” of their actions, but the truth is they should have seen it coming.
They should have known — in fact, they were being told constantly by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), among others — that all the money that had been going into the political parties was going to go somewhere else after the law went into effect.
Now, if McCain’s new bill cripples the 527s, the money will go still elsewhere. There’s a lot of talk about it flowing to the so-called C4s, so named because they are organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Service code. C4s, unlike 527s, are not required to make public the names of their contributors.
So after years of reform, we could see millions of dollars going into what amount to secret campaign chests — all because of campaign-finance reform. And when that happens, there will be calls for still more reform.
None of it was necessary. The only big change that was needed in the old campaign-finance system was a law requiring instant disclosure of contributions.
If Soros had wanted to give zillions to the Democratic Party, what would have been wrong with that? The party, representing all Democrats — both the fringe and the center — would have been more accountable to the public than the 527s were.
Of course, Republicans would have charged that the Democratic Party was “bought and paid for” by Soros. But as it is, Democrats are suffering politically from the presence of outsiders such as Soros and MoveOn’s Eli Pariser, who famously said of the Democratic Party, “Now it’s our party. We bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.”
And, of course, Democrats could have fired back by claiming that the Republicans were “bought and paid for” by Texas millionaires.
It would have been a perfectly healthy debate to have, and infinitely better than seeing all that money go into non-accountable organizations.
Back in the final days of debate over McCain-Feingold, McConnell, the man who has done more than any other to try to stop misguided “reform,” said, “This is a stunningly stupid thing to do, my colleagues.”
He was right, but his colleagues didn’t want to listen.
And now, they’re about to make the same mistakes again.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
If you really want to stop the most abusive political advertising, you've got to shut down the newspapers and the TV networks.
i wish someone would have the guts to try and shutdown "matching funds" and the department that runs it.
Amen!
Heh heh, I like the writer's attitude. He makes some good points.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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