Wednesday, February 20, 2002
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Wednesday, February 20, 2002 |
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Here's a simpler campaign reform idea By DAVE HAMRICK Here we go again. The House has passed its version of campaign finance "reform," proving for the ten thousandth time that there is nothing in American life that is working well enough that some politician won't try to "fix" it. Whenever you see the word "reform" attached to a bill in Congress, you can be sure that the result will be something that is more complicated, harder to understand, more difficult to enforce and provides more opportunities for abuse than whatever is being reformed. The one possible exception is the welfare reform passed back in the '90s. In the other cases, inevitably these kinds of reforms get foisted on the American people because the proponents couch the debate in terms that unfairly put the opponents in a bad light. They'll come up with some monstrous reconfiguration of Social Security and name it something like "The Help for Widows and Orphans, Prevention of Childhood Disease and Promotion of Brotherhood for All Mankind" bill. What?! You're opposed to help for widows and orphans, prevention of childhood diseases and promotion of brotherhood for all mankind?! Now we're reforming campaign finance, which amounts to tweaking previous laws that attempted to govern campaign finance, which were reforms of still earlier campaign finance laws. And guess what lawyers for big companies, unions and other organizations that like to give big money to political campaigns are doing, along with lawyers for political parties and political consultants? That's right. They're studying the new legislation to find out where the loopholes are ... and they are definitely there ... so they can keep on doing what they have been doing. And who benefits from such legislation? That's right, the lawyers and consultants. Clever, these Americans. Meanwhile, one provision of the bill is clearly an attack on your constitutional right to free speech. Well, "clearly" may be too strong of a word. Experts studying the bill can't figure out absolutely for sure whether the bill will reduce or increase the number of political attack ads paid for by groups that are outside the actual political arena. You know the ones ... "Sen. Bullmoose is opposed to the Smith/Jones Environmental Protection Bill, which will save the planet from utter destruction and prevent horrible diseases in newborn infants. Tell Sen. Bullmoose you are opposed to his desire to inflict disease on newborn infants and utterly destroy the planet (i.e., vote against Sen. Bullmoose and set fire to his house if you can get away with it). Paid for by the Committee for Everything Good and Decent." Hey, I agree, some of those ads are awful, and you can never tell who is really paying for them. That's the whole soft money/hard money argument. I'm only allowed to give so much money to Bullmoose's opponent, but I can give a boat load to some thinly disguised group that will saturate the airwaves with this kind of junk. So why would I be opposed to reforms that would prevent this kind of thing? Well, there's this little matter of the Constitution of the United States and its guarantee of free speech, which, unlike the provisions of the campaign finance reform bill, is crystal clear. You want campaign finance reform? I'll give you campaign finance reform. Here's my bill: You can give any amount of money you like to anyone's political campaign you choose as long as that money is duly reported and those reports made available online, by fax or mail to anyone who asks. If you want to run politically oriented advertising, knock yourself out, as long as you have a detailed list of all contributors available online, by fax or mail to anyone who asks. If you think all big oil companies are evil, and a candidate's money all comes from big oil companies, don't vote for him. If you like oil companies but don't like the AFL/CIO, and a candidate's money all comes from AFL/CIO, vote for the oil company guy. It's called freedom. Are we grown up enough to handle it? Apparently not.
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