New campaign financing regulations may already be a failure - National Affairs

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2003 by Patrick Basham

The brazenly unconstitutional restrictions on third-party advertising during the 60 days preceding Election Day and the 30 days prior to primary day are intended to "return control" over campaigns to the candidates and their parties. However, as a result of the soft money ban, both the parties and their candidates will lose influence over their own campaigns. In fact, the BCRA arguably constitutes the unilateral disarmament of the major parties.

The national parties currently coordinate their advertising campaigns with their respective senatorial and Congressional candidates. With the implementation of the new campaign finance regulations, they will have less operational and strategic influence over the campaigns conducted in specific states and districts.

The proregulation editorial writers of the Washington Post naively assume that "lawmakers can wash some $500 million in big-money contributions out of the Federal system: the cash from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals that was supposed to be banned from individual campaigns but that parties and officeholders have learned to use for the benefit of specific candidates." That forecast is echoed by Daschle, who believes that "we have the first real chance in a generation to limit the access of special interests in the political process."

On the contrary. Special interest groups, corporations, and labor unions will retain previously donated soft money funds. At an earlier point of the campaign, they will spend that money independent of the parties and candidates. In addition, prior soft money contributions from wealthy individuals will flow to these special interest campaigns instead of to their current destination--the national parties. For example, the role of the so-called nonpolitical 527 committees, such as EMILY's List, will remain unregulated by the BCRA. Therefore, as those political committees will be able to continue to raise large amounts of soft money, their influence will expand significantly vis-a-vis the political parties.

The Washington Post further predicts that the soft money ban "should take away some of the steam that drives the current, ever-expanding system. Those in business who say they feel obliged to contribute in order to protect their interests will have some insulation; donors who are aiming to curry favor or buy access will have less incentive to give." That view ignores the fact that the most-important factor driving campaign contributions and campaign spending upward is a government that grows ever larger in size and scope. Taxes and regulations on society have increased the ambit of government at all levels. Greater government activity leads to more efforts (including campaign contributions and independent campaign spending) to influence political decisions, a relationship confirmed by numerous studies. The 527 committees will provide receptive outlets for large donations that otherwise would be made to the parties themselves.

Political journalist Dan Balz reminds us that, "until 1996, proponents of campaign finance legislation had focused their energies on eliminating or sharply restricting the role of political action committees (PACs)." Ironically, during the final eight and a half weeks of the general election campaign of the future, the prescribed channeling of third-party advertising through PACs, paid for only in hard money donations, will increase the number of PACs and the proliferation of PAC-run micro-campaigns. A large number of such micro-campaigns will perform a series of one-time advertising attacks in specific races. These hit-and-run operations will all occur completely outside the control, but not the purview, of individual campaigns and the national parties.