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Jewish World Review Jan. 12, 1998 / 23 Teves, 5759
IT'S AN OLD SAYING IN WASHINGTON that sometimes it's better to just stand
there and do nothing.
Perhaps this message should steer the newly seated
106th Congress when it comes to the issue of campaign finance reform. As
Jews, with a weak voice given our percentage of the population (about
2.5%), we must never give in to a siren song like "campaign finance
reform" that would lower the volume of our microphones and limit how we
can voice our political messages and concerns.
Campaign finance reform,
in its various guises, has and would continue to abridge the free speech
clause of the First Amendment, create further confusion in an already
confused morass of campaign regulations and laws, and limit minority
voices in the political process.
We should hope that such "reform" has
not only died a silent death but that it will not rise again to threaten
free speech and political campaigns.
Two of those significant amendments included
curbs on the amounts of money that could be spent by a candidate on his
own campaign and curbs individuals and organizations could donate to a
campaign. Specifically, the amendments restricted individual
contributions to a candidate to $1,000 per candidate per election and a
total of $25,000 per calendar year in total contributions to all
candidates.
Candidates were limited to spending no more of their personal
money on a campaign than $25,000 for a House seat and $35,000 for a Senate
seat.
Then U.S. Senator, and millionaire, James Buckley (R-NY) challenged the
regulations as the lead plaintiff in the case Buckley v. Valeo. Senator
Buckley wanted to use his personal resources to finance his reelection
effort against a then-relatively unknown Harvard professor and public
policy official: Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Buckley's legal efforts took
his case to the Supreme Court which, in January of 1976, struck down the
expenditure limits but upheld the contribution limits (to this day, the
contribution limits remain, unindexed to inflation or anything else).
Buckley's history should serve as an empirical case-study of the mistaken
intuition that money--or millionaires--can buy elections. Today, almost
everyone reading this column knows who Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is;
does anyone remember who James Buckley was?
Buckley argued, and the Supreme Court held, that the electorate's
dependence on television, radio, and newspaper advertisements for their
information made expensive modes of communication indispensable
instruments of effective political speech. Money was a requirement for
effective political speech and the First Amendment, as understood by the
Supreme Court and constitutional legal experts, has, from time immemorial,
given political speech the highest level of protection.
The government,
when it came to campaign expenditures, had no business limiting the means
of political speech, at least when it came to how much an individual
candidate wanted to spend on his own message.
As the 1974 Congress didn't understand, and as most "campaign finance
reformers" refuse to concede, money spent on a campaign helps put a
message in public play, it does not guarantee political victory.
Multimillionaires Michael Huffington, Ross Perot, and Steve Forbes did not
win their candidacies notwithstanding the fortunes they spent on their own
campaigns. A breeze through the "Almanac of American Politics" will also
reveal that there are plenty of Congressmen and Senators who won their
races despite being outspent by their opponents (two brief examples: Rep.
Michael Forbes of New York was outspent three to one in his 1994 campaign
compared to his opponent who lost; Oliver North outspent his opponent by
four to one in quest of a Senate seat in Virginia and lost).
More
recently, in California Al Checchi (D) and Darrell Issa (R) spent tens of
millions of dollars to get their party's nominations for Governor and
Senator this year. Both lost to their underfunded opponents. While money
spent on a political message does influence the awareness of that message,
it does not guarantee the purchase of that message in the marketplace of
ideas.
Furthermore, those that would alter the First Amendment, in deference to
limiting expenditures, should ask themselves what values we, as a society,
place on money spending. Hollywood and, seemingly, society see no
problems in spending exorbitant sums on making movies such as "Titanic"
(which cost $200 million) or even the failed "Postman" (which cost $80
million).
As Michael Medved recently pointed out in the USA TODAY,
actress Sigourney Weaver will make $20 million on her next movie to no
public comment or quest for reform. Sports stars receive equally large
salaries to no criticism or quest for salary reform in professional
sports. It is ironic that entertainment novelties such as sports and
movies receive no criticisms for their exorbitant costs and expenditures
while political messages seem to require limits and reforms.
Rather than
curb political speech by limiting expenditures and advocacy groups'
rights, it should be seen as a positive good that we spend money on the
dissemination of political messages.
As a minority within this democracy, American Jews should be exceedingly
wary of attempts to abridge our political influence when and while we
can't use our numbers at the ballot boxes. Every Jewish organization
dedicated to public policy, and every contributor to such an organization,
should breathe a sigh of relief that their voice is not stifled by
"campaign finance reform." Such "reform" is aimed at limiting political
messages and the money that makes widespread political speech possible.
In our democracy, as one law professor has put it, it ought not to be a
crime to commit
Why campaign finance reform isn't good for Jews, or anyone else
By Matthew Brooks and Seth Leibsohn
The most significant laws that we now live under when we speak of
"campaign finance law" came about with the 1974 amendments to the Federal
Election Campaign Act. The amendments were enacted as a result of
perceived excesses in the federal elections of 1972 and were intended to
stop both corruption in electoral politics and the appearance of
corruption in campaigning.
Matthew Brooks is the Executive Director of the Jewish Policy Center, a
Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Seth Leibsohn is the Center's
Director of Policy.
