← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 9596 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-09-07
2003-09-07 08:51 | User Profile
From The Arizona Republic, available online at: [url=http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0907mccain-feingold07.html]http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/n...feingold07.html[/url]
McCain legacy on line as court tackles campaign-finance law
Billy House Republic Washington Bureau Sept. 7, 2003 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - In its most significant case involving campaign finance since ruling on post-Watergate reforms, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear constitutional challenges to the nation's sweeping new limits on political donations.
But the court's decision on the McCain-Feingold law will represent more than a landmark ruling on the influence of big money in federal campaigns, political experts say. Also at stake could be the political legacy of Arizona's senior senator, John McCain, the co-sponsor whose name is most identified with the law that took effect in November.
"This is his legacy, even more than the presidential campaign in 2000. He lost that, and losing campaigns don't get a lot of space in the history books," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia expert on campaigns and elections.
McCain has said he is looking forward to the appeal, "and we are confident the law will prevail in the end."
The case brings the Supreme Court its most important matter dealing with the role of money in politics since its landmark 1976 ruling, Buckley vs. Valeo, which upheld some post-Watergate limits on how much money individuals and organizations are allowed to contribute to a candidate for federal office.
Advocates of the new law say they are trying to close what has since developed into major loopholes that allow evasions of those reforms adopted in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
Known officially as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, or BCRA, the legislation drafted by McCain, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and others became law after years of debate. Its two fundamental provisions bar political parties from receiving large unregulated campaign contributions from corporations, unions and individual contributors known as "soft money," and limit radio and TV ads funded by unions or corporations during a campaign season that are billed as general issue ads but are really thinly veiled ads advocating a certain candidate.
At its core, the case pits those who equate unlimited campaign giving with First Amendment guarantees of free speech against those who see the influence of donors who can contribute large amounts of unregulated money drowning out the free-speech rights of others.
Rare session set
A lower-court panel has ruled on the law.
But its 1,638-page decision delivered such a confusing mixture of rulings on the law's restrictions that most analysts predict the Supreme Court likely will start from scratch. Both sides make their oral arguments during a rare special session Monday that is scheduled to last four hours.
"I don't think the Supreme Court is going to feel bound by what the lower court did at all," said Don Simon, general counsel for Common Cause, a government-watchdog group that supports the law.
The Supreme Court's decision is expected near the end of the year, just as the 2004 presidential campaign year kicks into high gear.
The constitutional issues and challenges come from varied directions.
Strange bedfellows
Leading the way is Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, backed by a diverse coalition that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah also have chimed in against the law.
"While BCRA's details are complex, the principles it upsets are basic," McConnell's lawyers wrote in legal briefs filed with the court. "First and foremost is our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open."
Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, in a brief filed on behalf of his and eight other states, argued that McCain-Feingold imposes so sweeping a federal regulatory scheme that it reaches activities affecting both federal and state elections.
"BCRA is clumsy. BCRA is unreasonable. BCRA has commandeered state laws, state constitutions and state ballot initiatives," the brief argues, adding that the law "creates real concrete examples of federal interference with the states' prerogatives on how its governments will be chosen."
"This cannot be reconciled with the Constitution," the brief says.
As recently as July, Arizona GOP Rep. Jeff Flake was advised by the Federal Election Commission that a state committee he established to raise money for the repeal of an Arizona law would fall under the McCain-Feingold fund-raising limits solely because Flake also is a federal officeholder.
"I argued that McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional back when Congress debated it, but after having had to go to the federal government this year and basically get their permission before I could participate on a state ballot initiative, I can tell you that it's much worse than I expected," Flake said.
President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold bill on March 27, 2002, although he noted then that he had reservations about its ban on advertising.
Federal defense
Still, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson will defend the law before the Supreme Court.
In his papers filed with the court, Olson notes that Congress since 1907 has been trying to limit the corruption or appearance of corruption by federal officeholders by reducing their dependence on corporate contributions.
But, Olson wrote, "The 1990s made clear that the temptation facing politicians to assist large donors is not limited to those who have contributed directly to their own campaigns. The political fortunes of officeholders and candidates are intertwined with the fortunes of their parties."
Law called necessary
Before McCain-Feingold, Olson said, corporations and unions "routinely evaded federal restrictions on the use of their general treasury funds to influence elections" by simply sending hundreds of millions of dollars to state and national political parties.
A number of groups that monitor the activities of Congress, government and campaigns, such as Common Cause, the Center for Responsive Politics, the League of Women Voters, AARP and past members of Congress from both parties, have lined up in support of the law.
And the Washington Post, in an editorial Monday, laid down its own gauntlet for the Supreme Court.
"To put it bluntly, for the court to strike down significant parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, it will have to say, in effect, if not explicitly, that the Constitution requires federal impotence in the face of the all-but-covert culture of influence peddling that now dominates U.S. politics."
The court's eventual ruling will affect not just campaign financing but possibly how history will remember McCain, some say.
Common Cause's Simon said the campaign-reform issue is the one with which McCain is most identified.
"He certainly is the most visible public advocate for campaign-finance reform," Simon said. "If, as I expect, the law is upheld, I think he will forever be identified with it and will appropriately receive credit."
Sabato, the University of Virginia expert on campaigns and elections, agreed that McCain's crusade to get the federal campaign-finance reforms passed has made him a favorite of the media and academic establishment, and the measure stands to be his most historically noteworthy political accomplishment.
"He's seen as on the side of angels," Sabato said.
But whether the Supreme Court will line up on that same side is far from certain, he said.
He noted that Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy have hinted in a recent decision involving state limits on campaign spending in Missouri that they are uneasy with the legacy of Buckley and are viewed as likely skeptics with regard to McCain-Feingold. But, based on their writings, Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Bryer are seen as supportive.
That would leave Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as the crucial swing votes to reach a five-justice majority on any of the issues of the case, Sabato said.
Reach the reporter at [email=billy.house@arizonarepublic.com]billy.house@arizonarepublic.com[/email] or 1-(202)-906-8136.
2003-09-07 17:30 | User Profile
I'm sure it will be no surprise to regular OD readers to find that Jews will be "big beneficiaries" of campaign finance reform.
[SIZE=3]'Soft' Landing for Issues Groups Campaign Finance Law May Boost Non-Profits[/SIZE] By E.J. KESSLER FORWARD STAFF - NOVEMBER 8, 2002
Political operatives woke up after election day under a new set of campaign finance laws, and Jewish interest groups may be the big winners.
Political hands say groups such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and its counterpart, the National Jewish Democratic Council, not-for-profits unaffected by the ban on "soft money" for political campaigns, are poised to be big beneficiaries of the new regime.
The National Jewish Democratic Council and Republican Jewish Coalition "are potentially big soft-money vehicles" that could rake in "millions of dollars," according to longtime Democratic operative Steve Rabinowitz. Other groups that stand to benefit are political action committees, or PACs, another vehicle frequently used by Jewish political activists.
The executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matthew Brooks, agreed. "Organizations such as RJC are in a strong position to carry out a lot of the issue-advocacy campaigns soft money contributions used to fund that are not going through parties," he said. According to Brooks, the group spent $200,000 on campaign ads in support of Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
The executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Ira Forman, said, "We could be the vehicle [for soft money]." He added, however, "the money will not come to us because you say, 'I'm here to take it.' People don't know where the money is going to go and how it will be spent. Courts will shape a lot of how this law operates.'"
The law, the McCain-Feingold Act, bans parties from raising soft money ââ¬â contributions raised from corporations, labor unions, interest groups and individuals that fund "party-building" activities such as voter drives and issue ads. Until now, such contributions were outside of the regular limits on donations for campaigns.
Under the new law, however, only issues groups will not be subject to limits. As long as the groups are independent of the parties and candidates do not "coordinate" their activities with them, their contributions remain unrestricted. The only constraint is the so-called Wellstone Amendment, which bans electioneering ads by such groups 60 days before an election and 30 days before a primary. And even that proviso is considered the most susceptible to a challenge on First Amendment grounds.
The law is considered a boon not only for the Jewish interest groups, but also for ideologically based groups who appear poised to troll for soft funds in Jewish precincts.
One such group, the New Democrat Network, set up by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and others to promote centrist candidates, is gearing up to raise significantly more soft money, according to its president, Simon Rosenberg. While Rosenberg said his group will not be tailoring its campaign to the Jewish community, it will be "making a national push and working in New York" ââ¬â code words for looking for Jewish donors.
Wherever the soft money goes, there is certainly a lot of it. The Republican National Committee and its Senate and congressional campaigns raised $295,736,340 in hard dollars and $221,715,168 in soft money in this election cycle as of mid-October, according to the Federal Election Commission. The Democrats' three parallel bodies raised $132,449,390 in hard dollars and $199,633,414 in soft money.
No one knows how much in the way of campaign contributions originate in the Jewish community, but fund-raisers say privately that the Democrats in particular are heavily dependent on contributions from Jewish sources. One notable recent soft-money contribution on the Democratic side was the $3 million that Hollywood producer Haim Saban gave to the Democratic National Committee to build its new headquarters.
Big Republican Jewish fund-raisers include Lew Eisenberg, the RNC finance chairman; Sam Fox, chairman of the Republican Regions, and Jeff Marcus, chairman of "Team 100," made up of $100,000-plus givers to the party. All are board members of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Democrats said their party did an analysis of the effect of the soft-money ban on various groups of contributors. According to the analysis, Jewish contributors will continue to fund political causes at the same rate, while corporate donations will likely decline because businesses won't like giving to groups not connected directly to lawmakers.
DNC spokeswoman Maria Cardona said, "I am not aware of any sort of report to that effect."
"The Jewish community is quite flexible and has the capability to become early adopters of any new system," Forman said. "Early adopters have an advantage over other people. The only thing that would damage [Jewish contributors] would be total public financing... but small-state Democrats would never accept it."
Both Brooks and Forman declined to indicate whether their groups would take on quasi-party functions such as phone banks or voter drives, as will some of the organizations set up to soak up soft money in the wake of the campaign finance law, such as the Democratic State Party Organization.
To date, the Jewish community has not weighed in on the legal merits of campaign finance, with the notable exception of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center, which favors campaign finance reform. "The general feeling in the Jewish community is that campaign finance reform is a mine-laden field," said the legal affairs director of the American Jewish Congress, Marc Stern. "There are plausible good-government arguments, and it would be unseemly for the Jewish community to support not-good-government and oligarchy of those who can play. On the other hand, the status quo hasn't worked badly for us.... The issue is being thoroughly litigated elsewhere, so we've chosen to sit it out."
[url=http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.11.08/news2.html]LINK[/url]