Mother Jones recently published a story on a concerted campaign by “reform” organizations to push for the misnamed “Fair Elections Now Act” after a pending decision in the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC.
Most observers expect the Court to overturn Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and part of McConnell v. FEC, affirming corporations’ (including advocacy nonprofits’) and unions’ First Amendment right to spend money on independent expenditures.
To “reform” organizations, such a decision would signal the end times, and Mother Jones reports that campaign finance regulation supporters plan to respond by creating an umbrella organization to spend $4 million touting a plan to give congressional candidates welfare for their campaigns:
In a confidential internal memo obtained by Mother Jones, Common Cause and Public Campaign, two leading reform groups, warn, “Without an aggressive media effort, reporters will likely call a bad decision in Citizens United another sign that campaign finance reform is a fool’s errand.” According to the memo, the groups’ strategy includes combining some staff from both outfits under one campaign umbrella and spending $4 million dollars over six months to put a positive spin on a negative Citizens United decision and push for public financing of congressional elections.
Wait, the money in politics scolds are saying the only way their campaign will succeed is if they can spend millions of dollars on a media campaign to spread their ideas to the public and lawmakers? How ironic.
Of course, this campaign is just the latest in a $100-million-plus “reform” effort to restrict political speech by passing onerous campaign finance restrictions ostensibly meant to reduce corruption in politics. Campaign finance “reformers” found themselves ensnared in a mini-scandal when a former program officer for Pew Charitable Trusts, Sean Treglia, admitted that campaign finance restrictions “didn’t have a constituency,” and Pew and allied organizations spent about $140 million from 1994 to 2004 to promote campaign finance regulations – including giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to media organizations like NPR, Mother Jones, PBS and the American Prospect magazine for favorable coverage.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with “reform” organizations accepting hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the political process. It’s just hypocrisy when they also trash everyone else for basically doing the same thing on issues ranging from lobbying to grassroots advocacy to campaign finance.
This latest push for a bailout for congressional campaigns will only succeed if “reformers” are able to set the story line that the only legitimate policy response to Citizens United is FENA.
Mother Jones quotes CCP’s explanation for why that’s ridiculous:
Jeff Patch, a spokesman for the Center for Competitive Politics, a group that opposes most campaign finance restrictions, says he doesn’t believe that a Supreme Court decision striking down limits on independent expenditures would improve reformers’ odds. “It’s wishful thinking,” he says. “It would probably actually go in the other direction…. It’s hard to believe that Congress would push themselves to limit their own ability to fundraise just because outside groups don’t [have limits anymore].”
“It will be the complete opposite result of what they say,” Patch argues.
By “complete opposite,” we mean that it’s more likely that Congress will reexamine the arbitrarily-low federal contribution limits and consider raising them. More speech is a good thing. Members of Congress – and, more importantly, congressional challengers – should be able to raise and spend money in unlimited amounts to spread their message to potential voters. Voters, ultimately, can make a decision on whether or not contributions should impact their support for a candidate. A challenger would have a much better opportunity to introduce him or herself to the voters if he or she could raise a few large contributions as seed money from family, friends and other supporters.
No one knows that better than “reformers”…
