Democrat corrupted by Democratic Party?

Published on July 17, 2008 03:00 PM
by Sean Parnell

File Under: Contributions & Limits, Coordination

In the never-ending world of campaign finance absurdities, I stumbled across this post at Red State, a Republican blog. This gist of the post is this: the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, running for U.S. Senate in Mississippi against incumbent Republican Roger Wicker, appears to have violated campaign finance laws by coordinating on an expenditure of at least $240,000, well in excess of the $180,800 allowed by current law.

This apparent violation has been helpfully brought to light by the disinterested but concerned citizens at the Wicker campaign (funny how most charges of campaign finance violations seem to be brought by opposing candidates), and I assume a formal complaint is being drafted right now if it isn't already on its way to the speech police.

The absurdity, of course, is the idea that coordination by the Musgrove campaign and the DSCC is potentially corrupting and must therefore be limited and regulated. Really, what's the danger here - that after being helped by the DSCC, Musgrove might feel obligated to vote in favor of the Democrat's agenda in the Senate? Isn't it a fair assumption that, if elected, that's pretty much what he's elected to do?

It's also worth noting that the so-called Millionaire's Amendment in the McCain-Feingold law (recently overturned by the Supreme Court, thankfully) allowed unlimited party coordination for candidates facing self-funded candidates. I guess even the "reformers" weren't that bothered by the prospect of unlimited coordination between candidates and party committees.

In the era before McCain-Feingold, when unlimited contributions to parties were legal, there was at least a rationale (a bad rationale, but a rationale nonetheless) for limiting these types of coordinated expenditures. Now that parties are limited to accepting no more than $28,500 from any one individual (and Senator McCain would seem to believe that contributions of up to $70,100 aren't corrupting, at least judging by this), does it really make sense to limit coordination by parties with candidates?