Campaign finance restructure, not reform
Did any of you really think that McCain-Feingold would actually take money OUT of politics? As this article in the Washington Post discusses the money that went to the parties will now just flow to PACs and other groups instead.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on your perspective. Many of us feel like we are the "disenfranchised center," with the Republican Party too radical on the socially conservative side and the Democratic Party too radical on the special interest side. However, I don’t believe that weakening the parties will improve this situation—I think it will make it worse. The parties, as this Post article points out, tend to be moderating influences. The PACs tend to be more radical (on either left or right)—for that is the nature of grass roots organizing. Countries that have several parties (think Italy, think France—where a fascist just beat out a socialist in round one of the presidential election) often have to create implicit or explicit coalition governments where the radical elements get appeased in greater proportion to their footprint because of their leverage.
Another issue is that while the parties have all sorts of disclosure rules governing their fundraising and spending, PACs do not. Did you really think McCain-Feingold would bring greater transparency to politics? It will bring less.
Finally, to the extent the ban on free speech when it comes to advertising within 60 days before an election is upheld by the courts, the winners will be big media who can say whatever they want whenever they want in the mass media (as they should) and the losers will be everyone else (who can’t). No wonder that the New York Times and Washington Post lobbied for CFR so strongly over the past 5 years (running an average of one editorial every 5 days over that period of time--all on an issue that the American people didn't show that much interest in.)
While I highly doubt that McCain-Feingold will take a penny out of politics, I am sure of one thing: the law of unintended consequences will triumph.
Chris Alden
Christopher J. Alden is Chairman & CEO of Six Apart Ltd., the world's leading blogging company. Six Apart acquired Rojo Networks, Inc., creator of an innovative RSS feed reading service, where Mr. Alden was co-founder and CEO. Before Rojo, he was CEO of Red Herring Communications, Inc., publisher of Red Herring magazine -- described by the Wall Street Journal as the "bible of Silicon Valley" - which he helped launch out of his house in 1993. Prior to that he founded Computer Guides, a consultancy.
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2 Comments
Thank you for taking on these critical issues of politicians being bought left and right. I completely agree on the unintended consequences. Speaking of which, I believe (and admittedly I'm not backed up in this belief by the past Supreme Court) that money and speech are not the same thing.
I hope that these laws continue to morph us down a road that ultimately leads to a return to democracy: a place where campaigns and parties use money to organize and plead their case, but ultimately do it with small or at least proportionally valid amounts of money/TV time.
While these attempts at legislation are far from perfect, and will indeed have unintended consequences, the process is both self-correcting and (usually) self-improving.
I'm not sure that anyone besides McCain ever thought this bill would improve the situation. My sense is that most congress members voted for it simply so that they wouldn't be one of the people who voted against it.
I was watching a debate between Newt Gingrich and the Devil in a Green Suit (Ralph Nader) wherein Gingrich opined that if we really want to "fix" the system, we must ban ALL corporate money and ALL union money, and then remove the cap on individual donations.
How's that for reform? Proving again what a huge loss it was when Gingrich was pressured out of office illegitimately.