How Do You Like It Now?: Campaign-finance reform, that is. The Democrats and their allies are still wailing

National Review, Sept 15, 2003 by Byron York

'The political landscape will change when this bill takes effect," said Michigan Democratic senator Carl Levin on March 20, 2002, the day the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill was passed. "It will be filled with more people and less influence; more contributors and smaller contributions; more democracy and less elitism."

Back then, reformers liked to say that McCain-Feingold would help "level the playing field" between the parties by getting rid of unlimited soft-money contributions. And indeed -- constitutional questions aside -- the law has led to more contributors and smaller contributions, as Levin predicted. But now, less than 18 months after the bill was signed into law, some of its supporters are deeply concerned about "flaws" in the system and are once again calling for . . . campaign-finance reform.

"The playing field is not level because the resources that are available to candidates to get their message out are so wildly unequal," says Deborah Goldberg, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice of New York University School of Law. "It was an unanticipated consequence of reform."

What worries reformers is simple: George W. Bush has been astonishingly successful at raising money for his re-election campaign. In the second quarter of this year, the president raised $34.4 million. In the same period, his nine Democratic opponents raised $30.6 million among them. The most successful Democratic money-raiser, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, collected $7.6 million. The president has declined to accept taxpayer money for the primaries, meaning he can spend what he wants. If Democrats, with less cash on hand, accept public money, they will have to abide by preset spending limits.

That has led some reformers to suggest that the system is "broken." "I think there's pretty widespread agreement that the system needs to be repaired," says Rep. Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat and one of the original sponsors of the McCain-Feingold bill. "The president can raise and spend about $200 million in the primaries. I don't think it makes any sense for his Democratic opponents to agree to spending limits that don't allow a competitive race."

What particularly frustrates the reformers is that Bush has had such success while strictly abiding by McCain-Feingold. He is collecting thousands of limited, hard-money donations -- "totally playing by the rules that were set up," in Meehan's words -- just as reformers envisioned. Of course, the same rules apply to everyone else, which suggests that, no matter what the reformers say, the playing field is, in fact, quite level. It's just that one team is clobbering the other. And that has sparked calls to change the rules.

In the next few months, campaign-finance reformers in the House and Senate hope to introduce legislation that would narrow the financial gap between candidates. The proposed bill, which would go into effect for the 2008 election, would increase the amount of money that presidential candidates who choose to accept taxpayer funding would be allowed to spend, and also increase the federal matching funds that those candidates receive. Under the law now, a candidate can receive a dollar-for-dollar match from the federal government on private contributions up to $250. If a contributor gives $250, the candidate gets another $250 from the government, but if a contributor gives the maximum-allowable $2,000, the candidate still gets $250.

Current ideas being discussed could raise the matching amount to $1,000. An even more generous idea under consideration would create a four-to-one match for contributions up to $250. That way, if a contributor gave $250, the candidate would receive $1,000 from the federal government.

Of course, the federal campaign-financing system doesn't have the money to pay for that. So the bill would also raise the amount that taxpayers who wish to contribute to the system could check off on their yearly income-tax returns. Right now, it is $3. Meehan says that figure should be doubled or tripled; others talk of making it an even $10.

One question reformers tend to avoid, as they make their case for raising the check-off amount, is why the system doesn't have more money already. After all, every American who files a tax return has the opportunity to contribute, and if a large number of them did, the system would be well funded.

But Americans don't contribute. Over the years, as they have seen more and more of the system, they support it less and less. In 1976, the first year of the check-off, 27.5 percent of tax filers chose to give $1 to the election fund. That number rose slightly to 28.7 by 1980 and then began a long, long slide. In 1985, 23 percent of tax filers contributed. In 1990, it was 19.5 percent. With the system in need of money, Congress raised the check-off amount to $3. But the percentage of taxpayers choosing to support the system fell even more. By 1995, it was 12.9 percent. By 2002, it was 11.3 percent.