Spending limits a good idea whose time may not come

Insight on the News, March 10, 1997 by John Berlau

The president wants to vote by summer on the McCain-Feingold bill to reform campaign finance, but it is a Democratic measure that only two Senate Republicans support. The issue is First Amendment rights.

Surrounded by allegations of questionable funding from possibly illegal foreign donors, President Clinton set a July 4 deadline for Congress to pass the "bipartisan" McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill. Senate Select Committee on Ethics Chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, however, believes "it's a sacrilege to mention this bill in connection with the day on which we celebrate our independence." He says "a more fitting date" on which to consider the bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, would be Pearl Harbor Day. "This bill shouldn't pass on July 4, Dec. 7 or at any other time," McConnell tells Insight.

In the scandal-charged atmosphere of American politics, all sides agree that the system of election finance is far from perfect. But, as McConnell's remarks suggest, disagreement is strong about what constitutes reform -- or even what the problems are. "If I'm correct and there's no consensus on the problem they're trying to solve, it's small wonder that they can't reach a consensus on the solution," says former Washington Rep. Al Smith, a Republican who championed campaign-finance reform during the early eighties.

While the McCain-Feingold bill and its companion legislation in the House would limit the amount candidates can spend and impose more regulations on advocacy by political parties and independent groups, a growing number of politicians and policy activists think the current system is overregulated and that deregulation actually would make candidates more accountable to voters.

McConnell, for instance, opposes the bill primarily because he believes it would chill debate by limiting how much money candidates could spend to inform voters. "When people say we're spending too much, it means they think we're speaking too much," McConnell says. "I don't think we have too much speech in this country.... I don't think we have too much political debate and discourse." Suggesting that perhaps not enough money is spent on matters as important as elections, he adds that the total expenditures during the last electoral cycle were less than what Americans spend yearly on yogurt.

McCain counters that while "there is no crisis of confidence in yogurt, there certainly is about the present system of campaign finance." He tells Insight, "If yogurt spent all its money attacking ice cream and ice cream spent all its money attacking yogurt, we wouldn't eat either one of them." McCain says he introduced his bill because he believes "the system is broken" and "the influence of money in politics inordinately affects legislation."

But, as the cliche goes, money also is the "mother's milk of politics." The Supreme Court ruled in the 1976 case of Buckley vs. Valeo that money spent in Campaigns is a form of speech protected under the First Amendment because, as McConnell likes to point out, money generates information. McConnell says that if McCain-Feingold passes he immediately will challenge it in court. Diverse political groups ranging from the Christian Coalition and the National Right to Life Committee to the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, also charge that many portions of the bill are unconstitutional, particularly the ban on contributions to candidates from political-action committees, or PACs. "The ability for individuals to get together and decide as a group that they will support certain candidates is a right of free association that's protected by the Constitution," says Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington office.

McCain concedes that the PAC ban is "probably unconstitutional," and his bill has a "fallback provision" to limit PAC contributions to $1,000 if the courts say they can't be eliminated altogether. Moreover, he says, the ban on PAC contributions probably will be stripped from the bill in negotiations. "I'll be blunt with you -- it's going." He says he inserted the provision because of popular opposition to PACs and stressed that some parts of the bill are merely a "framework for negotiations."

McCain says other provisions of his proposal should pass constitutional muster, but House and Senate minority leaders Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Tom Daschle of South Dakota aren't so sure. They have proposed a constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending by narrowing the First Amendment. Gephardt told Time magazine, "What we have is two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can't have both." McCain says a constitutional amendment is unneccessary, but adds, "I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it."

In the Buckley case, the Supreme Court struck down mandatory spending limits but upheld the voluntary limits to which most presidential candidates agree to get matching funds from the taxpayers. Similarly, the McCain-Feingold bill attempts to get congressional candidates "voluntarily" to agree to spending limits in exchange for 30 minutes of free television time and discount postal rates. However, some scholars say the bill may impose "unconstitutional constrictions" because it also gives special privileges to the opponent of a candidate who doesn't agree to the "voluntary" limits.