Free Republic

The news media's treatment of foundation involvement in public policy may have changed forever on March 17. That was the day the New York Post published "Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam," an account by one of its columnists, Ryan Sager, of the massive spending by several mainstream foundations to secure passage of the 2002 overhaul of campaign-finance laws and to keep the issue alive. Mr. Sager told his readers he had discovered "an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a 'mass movement.'" Foundations like Ford, Open Society, Carnegie, Joyce,...

The biggest loophole in the laws regulating big-money campaign donations is the runaway spending by unregulated shadow-party advocacy groups. The $400 million that poured through these thinly disguised party operations - called "527 committees" after a section of the tax code - included funds for the campaign by the supposedly independent Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against Senator John Kerry, and the checkbook politicking of George Soros, who spent $24 million trying to defeat President Bush. The loophole obviously needs plugging, but the going is getting rough in both the House and Senate. Forum: Today's Editorials In the Senate, a...

The news media's treatment of foundation involvement in public policy may have changed forever on March 17. That was the day the New York Post published "Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam," an account by one of its columnists, Ryan Sager, of the massive spending by several mainstream foundations to secure passage of the 2002 overhaul of campaign-finance laws and to keep the issue alive. Mr. Sager told his readers he had discovered "an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a 'mass movement.'" Foundations like Ford, Open Society, Carnegie, Joyce,...

An attempt by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) to extend federal campaign finance regulation to independent political groups has backfired in the Senate Rules Committee, which amended the 527 Reform Act of 2005 (S. 271), to repeal portions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). The vastly altered version of S. 271 passed by the committee on April 27 is a crazy quilt of amendments that restricts independent groups while lifting limits on business groups and PACs run by members of Congress. An additional amendment exempts groups that limit their activities to voter mobilization if...