Campaign Finance Reform

[Philip O'Brien <Irishman15@att.net>]

Campaign Finance Reform is sorely needed, and it looks like it's headed in the right direction.  The amendment to McCain-Feingold that would have allowed parties to pour in massive amounts of money on behalf of their candidates when the opponent spends over $1 million of his or her personal money was defeated.  Thank God!  The bottom line is that in the majority of today's races candidates do spend over $1 million of their own money, and so every election candidate practically would have been able to use this loophole.  

The other great development in the Senate Debate was the vote to require television stations to offer candidates cheap airtime in primetime spots.  Before we can eliminate soft money, we need to control the spiraling costs of campaigning, and cheapening advertising costs is the way to do it.  This method uses powers of the Federal government through the FCC to control costs and thus doesn't move into the realm of flat out limiting how much money can be spent on voicing positions on campaign issues (which was delared unconstitutional in Buckley v. Valeo).  

We will never squeeze soft money out of Washington until effective campaigns can be run for less money, and until we make more laws to facilitate this, then no legislator in his right mind is going to vote to place a ban on soft money.

The outlook for McCain-Feingold in its present state looks dim because they don't have the necessary votes in the House or Senate to override Bush's presidential veto.