Now what does this have to do with a column on campaign-finance reform? Consider one Richard Farmer, founder of Cintas Corp., a huge uniform-supply company. He fervently believes that improving the working conditions in his factories would wreck his bottom line. The man’s entitled to his opinion, and to lobby Washington. But under our current system, he’s entitled to something else–to give Republicans $721,000 last year in “soft money,” the now gaping loophole that essentially allows corporations, unions and individuals to give as much as they want to political campaigns as long as it’s laundered through the parties.
If he felt it necessary, Farmer could have given $7 million or $70 million or $700 million–the sky’s the limit. Any amount, any day, any issue–all totally legal under current law. Even when the motives and principles of the legislators are pure, even when they really do hate those ergonomic regs, it looks to the world like legalized bribery and extortion.
Next week the U.S. Senate will suspend all other business for 10 days of debate on McCain-Feingold, arguably the most famous piece of legislation since Gramm-Rudman two decades ago. The bill would ban soft money and limit how corporations and unions (though not individuals) pay for those phony “issue ads” (“Call Congressman Smith. Tell him to stop gouging the taxpayers…”) 30 days before a primary and 60 days before an election.
The specific provisions are thorny and almost certain to be amended; the issue-ad portions may well be an unconstitutional infringement on speech. No one would put money on its passage. But at least the battle has finally been joined. For years legislators have gone through the motions, knowing that nothing would change. This year they can’t be so sure. “Until we have a vote, I’m not moving off this for the budget or World War III,” John McCain told me.
On the surface McCain and Russ Feingold have the votes: all 50 Senate Democrats and 10 Republicans have endorsed it. (Prospects for the companion Shays-Meehan bill in the House are even better). Trent Lott no longer dares call soft money “the American way”; Mitch McConnell, famous for dissing the bill, has fewer votes in his pocket. Bush’s old argument that it’s a pro-labor deal is sounding a little tinny now that the AFL-CIO is lobbying against key elements. So is the ACLU, the GOP’s strangest bedfellow.
Of course, every time a Democratic senator says under his breath that the party can’t possibly compete without soft money (where Democrats are roughly equal to the otherwise better-funded GOP), a Republican thinks, “Hmm… maybe we can stomach some version of this bill after all.” Which helps explain why Bush, anxious to avoid a veto, has been telling his staff to coordinate White House support for a compromise bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, and Louisiana Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu and John Breaux. The Hagel bill would allow soft-money donations of up to $60,000 and open up another loophole by enabling federal officeholders and candidates to continue to raise unlimited funds as long as they’re channeled through state parties. Could the law keep that money from cascading back into federal elections? Not bloody likely.
That’s just one of dozens of looming loopholes and other unintended consequences of “reform.” The question before the Senate is whether such possible outcomes are worse than the status quo. It’s hard to see how they could be. Maybe the military was right in Vietnam, after all. Sometimes you really do have to blow up the village in order to save it. More likely, Congress will pass an empty compromise, then, as the late senator George Aiken suggested about Vietnam, declare victory and go home.
McCain’s aim is to trade on his rock-star status (and wartime heroics) to prevent that. To do so, he needs his old allies in the press. If the media could devote a fraction of the passion and time to the causes of the disease that it lavished on the John Huang-Marc Rich-Lincoln Bedroom symptoms, real change might even be possible.
To hear the critics, campaign-finance reform is the work of lefty do-gooders with no respect for free speech. The GOP defenders of the smelly status quo never seem to mention that it was Republican President Teddy Roosevelt who in 1907 outlawed corporate contributions to campaigns, and the Republicans in Congress who in 1947 outlawed similar donations by unions. As recently as last year, the Supreme Court once again upheld the constitutionality of limits on campaign contributions. Yes, money can never, ever be removed from politics. Even full public financing would sprout loopholes. But just because the basement will always be damp doesn’t mean the house has to flood. The water is rising, and the hour is short.
