Campaign finance reform
Congress seeks to block 'influence' of labor, civil rights
groups
By Gary Wilson
Think that campaign finance reform is about ending
corruption and eliminating Enron-like scandals?
Think again. Before Enron made the top of the news, Sen.
John McCain was telling Congress they should support his plan
to ban "soft money" because it would put limits on independent
political action.
What he didn't say was that it would ban some of the most
popular forms of political action used by advocacy groups like
the NAACP and labor organizations like the AFL-CIO.
The McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" bill passed by
the Senate last year and the almost identical Shays-Meehan bill
passed by the House on Feb. 14 would severely restrict the use
of so-called soft money, limiting the ability of independent
groups to raise issues or even mobilize supporters on a
specific issue during the two months prior to a primary or one
month before an election.
Soft money is generally defined as money donated to be used
for "party-building activities," which includes, but is not
limited to, voter registration, education and mobilization.
While Congress is putting restrictions on "soft money," it
is increasing what is called "hard money." The primary
difference between hard money and soft money is how the money
can be used. Hard money is used expressly to advocate the
election or defeat of a particular federal candidate.
Hard money makes up most of the money used in federal
election campaigns and is the kind of money Enron used to buy
influence in Washington.
Soft money includes the money raised by labor and civil
rights organizations--including women's rights groups, lesbian/
gay/bi/trans groups, the disabled and any oppressed minorities.
This is the primary target of Congress's campaign finance
reform, not Enron and its ilk.
McCain used to use the example of the NAACP as the kind of
"special interest" his finance "reform" bill would limit. A
year ago, in January 2001, McCain said on MSNBC's "Hardball"
with Chris Matthews that his bill would prevent the NAACP from
running the kind of ads it ran during the 2000 elections.
The ads McCain objected to were directed against George W.
Bush and focused on racism and the death penalty in Texas. One
ad showed the brutal slaying of African American James Byrd in
Texas.
'Recipe for political repression'
The American Civil Liberties Union found McCain's finance
reform to have little to do with finance and everything to do
with throttling the right to speak out on issues during
election campaigns.
In a March 20, 2001, letter to Congress the American Civil
Liberties Union said: "Simply put, the McCain-Feingold bill is
a recipe for political repression because it egregiously
violates longstanding free speech rights in several ways."
The law as written, says the ACLU, bans issue advocacy
completely if sponsored by a labor union or a non-profit
corporation--like Planned Parenthood. It even prohibits
individuals from "engaging in electioneering
communications."
While restricting "soft money," Congress's campaign finance
reform performs a sleight-of-hand trick to facilitate big
donations.
It prohibits direct contributions to the Republican National
Committee and the Democratic National Committee, but allows
contributions of up to $10,000 per individual to the state and
local branches of those parties. Tim Russert said on "Meet the
Press" Feb. 17 that the $10,000 limit applies only to each
county. That means that in New York state, for example, with
its 58 counties, one rich individual could give the maximum
amount to the Democratic or Republican Party in each county, or
$580,000 in that one state alone.
The bill would also increase the cap on contributions to
individuals--so-called hard money--from $1,000 to $2,000. This
increase will probably make up for whatever the Republican or
Democratic candidates may lose under the new limits on soft
money, according to Public Campaign. (www.publiccampaign.org)
Public Campaign says hard money has always been more
important than soft money. "Of the $2.9 billion collected for
the 2000 elections by federal candidates and national political
parties, three-fourths--$2.2 billion--was hard money," the
organization says in its report "Hard Facts on Hard Money."
"Hard money outweighs party soft money by a ratio of 4.4 to
1," the report continues. And hard money is the money used to
"buy influence."
"Well connected donors bundle hundreds of $1,000 hard money
donations. Their influence reflects their ability to raise
hundreds of thousands of dollars from family members, business
colleagues and others--not their personal $1,000 contributions.
Increasing the limit would increase their influence," the
report adds, indicating that it is just one-eighth of 1 percent
of the voting population that controls this kind of
influence-buying big money.
Sherman Anti-Trust
and campaign finance
It should come as no surprise that the capitalist
politicians have introduced a campaign finance law that will
actually increase the influence of the rich while blocking the
rights of labor and progressive organizations.
That kind of crookedness is politics as usual in
Washington.
In the 1890s, when monopoly capitalism was beginning to
emerge, there was popular opposition to the rising control of
the big trusts and robber barons of that time. Under popular
pressure, Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which was
sold to the public as a law to forbid monopolies.
The law never stopped any monopolies. The law was used
almost exclusively against labor unions. According to "Labor
Relations Law" by Benjamin Taylor and Fred Witney, the
anti-trust law "retarded the development of trade
unionism."
After the passage of the Sherman Act, labor unions learned
that the law "limited a variety of vital union activities." To
this day, the anti-trust laws are used to restrict unions from
exercising their right to boycott anti-union companies.
Whenever Congress loudly declares that it is clamping down
on how politicians get their money, it is time to get worried.
Any reform of campaign contributions that is written by the
Republicans and Democrats is more than likely to be a way to
increase campaign contributions, not limit them.
Real reform would require kicking out all the capitalists
and their crooked politicians. And that won't come from the
gang running Congress and the White House.
Reprinted from the Feb. 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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