Socialist Action /May 2001
Campaign Finance 'Reform' Battle: Much
Ado About Nothing
By PAUL SIEGEL
The mainstream media have portrayed the struggle
over the Senate bill on campaign finance as an epic battle. The New York
Times, for instance, breathlessly commented editorially on the struggle
as it progressed, proclaiming it to be of "historic importance."
For The Times the victory of the McCain-Feingold
bill was the victory of the forces of light over the forces of darkness.
A careful reading of The Times's own reportage, however, gives quite
a different picture.
Before we examine the actual effect of the bill
that was passed, it will be well to look at the underlying reasons for the
bill's introduction and passage. The key was given by David B. Magelby,
a professor of political science who specializes in campaign finance. "It
is an irony," he said, "that the system spun so out of control
that even the incumbents got afraid of it" (The New York Times,
March 31, 2001).
With the enormous costs of TV advertising and the
unregulated spending of "soft money" (money that ostensibly goes
to a political party, not a candidate), money-raising became frenzied. It
wasn't just during election campaign that money was raised. The moment a
politician was elected to office he began raising money for his next campaign,
and this fund-raising occupied the major portion of his time.
Politicians complained about the rat race in which
they were engaged, and wealthy donors (one-eighth of one percent of the
population gives 80 percent of all political contributions) complained about
the number of times they were approached for money. Wealthy senators (half
of the members of the Senate are millionaires) complained about the super-rich
candidates like the Republican Michael Huffington and the Democrat Jon Corzine,
who poured $30 million and $65 million respectively into their campaigns
from their personal funds.
Many, therefore, wanted some kind of regulation,
but many also feared that they would be disadvantaged by proposed regulations.
Each party sought to gain the maximum advantage.
In the general jockeying for position, while there
was disagreement about the methods of regulating the flow of money from
private and corporate wealth, there was unanimous support for a system that
makes this money available. Politicians hunger for money as a baby hungers
for its mother's milk.
Another factor in the debate was an awareness of
the disgust on the part of the voting public with the transparent buying
of influence and with the omnipresent TV ads. This resulted in a lot of
grandstanding.
It is generally known that Congress members who
had earlier voted for reforms in previous sessions did so only for the record,
knowing that the reforms were going to be defeated. McCain himself, as a
crusading knight dedicated to campaign reform, acquired a new, shining suit
of armor to replace his old coat of arms, stained some years ago by the
revelation during the savings and loan scandal of his intercession for the
dishonest banker Charles E. Keating, a major contributor to his election
campaign.
What will the McCain-Feingold bill, if it becomes
law, accomplish? Soft money will be eliminated, but the ceiling on "hard
money"-money going directly to candidates' campaigns-will be lifted
from $1000 to $2000 per individual for each election and the aggregate donation
limit to candidates and parties for the two-year period of the election
cycle will be raised to $100,000, indexed to inflation. This means that
a husband and wife could contribute a total of $200,000 in an election cycle.
Democratic minority leader Daschle said of the
$200,000 sum, "That's a mockery of reform proposals." Nevertheless,
he voted for it as a compromise "necessary to keep us moving forward"
(The New York Times, March 29, 2001). One progresses by taking one
step forward and two steps back!
Issue advertisements that do not call for a vote
for or against a candidate are not regulated. In the last election cycle,
half a billion dollars was spent on these advertisements, the same as the
amount given in soft money.
PACs, political action committees that collect
hard-money donations, will not have tightened controls. In the 1980s PACs
formed by corporations and trade associations were the chief financial means
members of Congress used to run for office. The money donated by these business
organizations yielded huge dividends in the form of legislation affecting
their industries, and PACs were denounced by reformers.
At a seminar on the McCain-Feingold bill for 70
corporate executives, they were told by the campaign finance lawyer running
the seminar that PACs would now regain their former importance: "A
few years ago, PACs were the bad boys-now they're the good boys. Even John
McCain thinks they're just dandy" (The New York Times, April
2, 2001).
Many of the large donors of soft money told The
New York Times (March 4, 2001) that "whatever rules were put in
place, the parties and some donors would find ways around them." And,
of course, all other donors, including those who professed themselves to
be pure, would follow suit.
The whole history of American capitalism attests
to the truth of this. Reform laws were passed in 1907, 1925, and the early
l970s, but the flood of money was only diverted into other channels and
continued to swell. The humorist Will Rogers' quip in the 1920s, "We've
got the best Congress money can buy," is more apt than ever.
Whatever is the final fate of the McCain-Feingold
bill as it goes to the House of Representatives and faces a possible presidential
veto or a Supreme Court decision declaring it unconstitutional, we may be
sure of one thing. Whatever happens to it, big business will be as much
in control of the political process as ever. This is in the nature of things
in a plutocratic society in which electoral laws are designed to maintain
the two-party monopoly and in which money not only talks but bellows, drowning
out dissident voices.
Union bureaucrats, using their members' money,
have played the political game by the same rules as the corporations, by
whom they have, however, been outspent 10 to one. They have subordinated
themselves to the Democratic Party, which is mainly financed by the corporations,
and have not thought to build a party of labor and to use concurrently extra-electoral
measures such as rallies, marches, and strikes to fight for its demands.
The result is manifest in such things as the "fight"
through the years over the minimum wage. The Democrats proposed a picayune
increase, gaining credit as "friends of labor," while the Republicans
resisted it; the two then engaged in shadow boxing that left the minimum
wage about where it had been, lagging behind the rise in the cost of living.
A militant labor party would wage a great campaign
to transform the minimum wage into a truly living wage indexed to the rise
in the cost of living. It would explain that raising the floor would lift
the wages of all of labor. Such a campaign would make use of elections for
educational purposes to draw people to participate actively in politics
rather than watch it as spectators.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |