SAN FRANCISCO – The campaign-finance reformers finally got their wish with the passage of a new federal bill banning soft money and restricting the free speech rights of independent groups ranging from the National Abortion Rights Action League to the National Rife Association.
Actually, many opponents of campaign-finance reform also got what they wanted. The new bill increases the individual limit on hard-money contributions to federal candidates from $1,000 to $2,000 (it’s already $4,000 for state-level candidates in North Carolina). This will aid a great deal in raising the kind of cash necessary to run a modern campaign without having to spend an inordinate amount of time building sand castles one grain at a time. More importantly, reform skeptics got a test case that will surely go to the U.S. Supreme Court — and that, many believe, will result in a stronger jurisprudence protecting our First Amendment rights against encroachment by John McCain, Richard Gephardt, and the rest of the speech police.
In North Carolina, the practical effects of the new finance law will probably be mixed. As state parties will still be allowed to raise soft money at $10,000 a pop, they’ll be where some of the new action is. Furthermore, large contributors seeking to influence the political process will look for new avenues to do so, such as supporting public-affairs organizations already existing in North Carolina or starting new ones (“voter-registration” and “citizen-involvement” charities are some of the front groups the Democrats will found or expand, while Republicans will direct their donors’ money to issue-oriented groups).
Campaign spending will continue to rise, the excitable will continue to complain, and the rest of us will simply find it a little harder to track who is giving money to whom, and why. Corporate executives are one clear winner from the bill, however, because they will feel less pressure to give big money to state parties or independent groups than they previously did to the president’s national party (either Clinton’s or Bush’s).
Bottom line: campaign finance reform is a sham, and everyone in the game knows it. As long as politics matters, as long as one person can use the process to do something to or steal something from another, those with access to financial resources will seek to use them. Oh, and the tooth fairy isn’t real, either.