John F. Schmidt
3/23/02
The ink will hardly be dry on President George W. Bush’s signature on the so-called Campaign Finance Reform (CFR) bill before a court challenge will be mounted to render some portions of it unconstitutional. Both the President and many in Congress who voted for it know that, and earnestly hope it will happen.
There are a lot of Congress people who swore an oath to ‘protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, but who refused to stand up and be counted on the side of right. They just “passed the buck.”
I didn’t think I would ever miss Bill Clinton for anything, but one thing about him I do miss was his willingness to veto bills he didn’t agree with. He was very successful at tying up Congress with vetoes until he got his way. Despite being a complete failure as a good leader, He did exhibit an extraordinary strength in refusing legislation he abhorred. Too bad he stood diametrically opposed to what he should have supported. He could have been a great president if he were not otherwise a hollow man.
It grieves me to think that Mr. Bush (and a majority in Congress) might be hollow in another way: they know what is right, but won’t stand up for it when the going gets a little hard.
The “ball” is now in Mr. Bush’s court. He knows that the bill is bad legislation and is certainly going to be picked apart by the Supreme Court. In fact, he is betting on it. It is reported that he plans to take the easier course of not opposing it directly, but rather letting it slide through under his signature. That way he can claim he is for ‘reform’ too. When the Court (hopefully) strikes down the bad provisions, everyone can point to the Court as the ‘bad guy’, and wash their hands of responsibility.
I thought Bush at least had learned something from his Bible studies: the easy way is seldom the best or the right way.
The Campaign finance Reform bill will not remove the influence of money from politics. If that is what you thought, you better read up on it. It actually expands the ability of some givers to give more than they do now. Its most pernicious provision is found in its restriction on the ability of small issue groups to spend money in media advertising during that critical period just before an election. It gags them so they can’t point out incumbent’s voting records, or remind forgetful voters of politician’s stands on important issues.
Under CFR the Media, of course, are free to promote “their” candidates all they like. Only they call it ‘Unbiased News Reporting.’ Remember the three major network talking heads opining on the Bush candidacy against Al Gore in November 2000? There were some countervailing voices then. Imagine a return to the days thirty years ago, when the only news was big network news. If you wanted to get out a contrary opinion, your voice would never be heard. You were stuck with low impact methods. CFR will subtly roll the clock back. That’s why the major media have been so strongly supporting CFR: it puts them back in the driver’s seat again.
Money, you see, is not the real issue. It never has been. Money is simply the expression of a person or group’s interest in the outcome of an election. The founders placed no restrictions on the people’s ability to influence elections (ie: vote with their dollars), but they placed a lot of restrictions on the government’s power to do so. Read the Bill of Rights. Some founders, like George Mason, refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights. Looks like his fears were well-founded. This so-called reform legislation is a thinly veiled attempt to use government power to limit the people’s participation in the election process. The ‘red herring’ being drawn across the path to throw us off the scent is the idea that “big money” influences the election process. The truth is, after CFR becomes law, only certain ‘big money’ will be allowed to have an influence. You should search out for yourself whose money will talk then: it won’t be yours and mine.
CFR is to citizen involvement in elections what government regulation is to a free press: it eventually strangles them both.
The explanation for CRF is not so hard to understand. Today’s political power structure has a problem. Small upstart citizen groups, using new techniques and new technology, have been making incumbency a dangerous occupation for many politicians, whereas it used to be a comfortable place of power with little challenge or hazard. One outcome of this bill will be to put control of elections back in the hands of the big media people and the power brokers – and of course, the incumbents, who are the ones the power brokers select to office. This legislation will lock the ordinary citizen out of the process as much as possible, and neutralize the effectiveness of issues ads for instance, which have come to play such a deciding role in the last several elections.
The McCain-Feingold legislation is billed as reform. But after it is finished, real political reform will be much harder for the citizens to accomplish. Their hands will have been tied.
We should not rejoice in the prospect that the Supreme Court will probably rule against the bill if it becomes law. The whole bill won’t be eliminated if the Supreme Court strikes down a few unconstitutional elements. That’s because the bill has built-in ‘severalty’ - all provisions remain valid except precisely those points that the Court strikes down. The mischief is as much in what’s left as in what is struck down.
Passing the buck to the Court continues a very dangerous habit of Congress and the Presidency. Congress should have thrown out CFR on principle, but Principle is in short supply there. So Congress failed. Now it is up to President Bush for a true test of character. If he too, passes the buck, then he will have left it to the vagaries of the Supreme Court to decide something really important. It could easily get it wrong.
Doesn’t anyone remember the principle that those who continually submit themselves to another power, eventually become slaves to that power? (Romans 6:16). This is not just an irrelevant bit of folk wisdom; it is an inexorable law of the universe. How can we expect to remain a free people if we continue to defer such important decisions to an un-elected body? These people are not our representatives, and they are definitely not our protectors.
This
is not the first time this has happened. Read the legislative history of the
Abortion issue (Roe v. Wade) and decide whether the Court even had jurisdiction
in the case. And why didn’t the Congress, who has the power constitutionally to
limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court (if there is a question), step in
and slap the Court back into it’s place? This abdication of responsibility has
been going on for a long time and it has to stop. The Court is not to blame
when Congress and the President continually hand them their most unpalatable
decisions. Social Issues, for instance, if they do reach the Federal level,
belong in the people’s branch - Congress – not the Court.
I will leave the question “If not CFR, then what?” to another article, but no change at all is better than McCain-Feingold.
A number of prominent and concerned citizens have written a letter to President Bush, urging him to veto the bill. I urge you to be a part of preventing it from becoming law. It is one more link in our fetters. Urge the President to make a principled decision and not just pass the buck.