OPINION & EDITORIAL
Feingold-McCain ‘Incumbent Protection Plan’ fails
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Also by Matt Modell:
- Taking responsibility for your decisions (April 24, 2003)
- An honorable and just battle (November 20, 2003)
- Fixing the problems of ASM (November 25, 2003)
- The key word is 'illegal' (December 4, 2003)
- A fond farewell to UW (December 11, 2003)
Related Stories:
- Et tu, Mr. President? (March 20, 2002)
- Deregulation of campaigns vital (March 29, 2007)
- Feingold for Senate (November 1, 2004)
- Applause for Feingold (October 16, 2001)
- Veto bill could limit spending (April 26, 2007)
by Matt Modell
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, worked for years to pass campaign-finance “reform” legislation. Last March this legislation was signed into law. But it didn’t take long to see this legislation was a failure.
The illusion that money had been largely removed from the political system faded this week as billionaire hedge-fund operator George Soros told the Washington Post in an interview that the 2004 presidential election was “a matter of life and death.” Soros also donated $5 million to the liberal activist group, MoveOn.org, apparently bringing his total donations in an effort to oust President Bush to over $15 million, and the election is still over 350 days away.
Two of the main objectives of the plan were supposed to be to take money out of politics and to even the playing field. These were, at least, the publicly stated objectives of those Senators and Representatives behind the proposal. Perhaps one of the more likely motivations for many Democrats was to try to hamstring the Republican Party and candidates from raising money. But the exact opposite effect has occurred for some candidates. With hard-money-donations limits now doubled, effective hard-money fund-raisers, like President Bush, are breaking fund-raising records each election cycle, as their support grows. President Bush is expected to raise approximately $200 million in hard money for the upcoming presidential election.
The idea for this campaign-finance bill was that if soft money was banned, candidates would be elected by the issues, not because one candidate was vastly out-spent (as Republican candidate Sonny Perdue was in the Georgia election, when he faced and defeated Democratic incumbent Gov. Roy Barnes).
This plan was, from the beginning, fraught with loopholes. Unlike the old system where political parties and candidates for federal office had to report all large contributions received, the new system allows a billionaire like George Soros, or New York attorney Harold Ickes, who was embroiled in President Clinton’s 1996 presidential scandal, to pour millions of dollars into new start-up special-interest groups like MoveOn.org and America Coming Together. Both groups started in response to the new campaign-finance laws.
Special-interest groups are not required by law to disclose how much money is being donated or who is making the donations. While money could be donated to these groups under the old system, it was generally believed to be more effective to donate the money to the political parties, and thus, the money was reported and open to the public. Now many people will not bother donating money to the parties, since they are limited to $2,000 per election cycle, and will instead funnel millions of dollars that will go publicly unaccounted for to special interests seeking to influence the elections.
This new system makes organizations and candidates less accountable and leads to greater possibility of corruption, because the stakes have been raised. The millions of dollars poured into these special-interest groups will mean more television attack ads and even possible political favors can occur without others knowing that it is happening.
If special-interest groups are going to be active in campaigning, as they will be in 2004 and have been almost every year, these organizations should be required to disclose financial information about how much money was donated and by whom. This information should be posted online, and these organizations should be held to the same finance limits set at $2,000 per individual, per election cycle, as political parties and candidates running for federal office.
The McCain-Feingold plan has also turned into an incumbent-protection plan. Incumbents have the advantage of name ID and office to help raise funds throughout the nation (as Feingold has done in amassing his war chest). Challengers have little chance now unless their last name is Schwarzenegger, because the amount of money they can raise is restricted and the state and national parties do not have the funds they once had to help good candidates get their names out to voters.
Consider the pending Senate election Feingold faces. Between his various opponents — Tim Michels, Bob Welch and Russ Darrow — at least one of those candidates would likely represent Wisconsin better than Feingold is representing the state. But the likelihood of Feingold losing, even though he doesn’t represent Wisconsin residents’ views on important issues such as taxes and gun rights, is much less because Feingold’s finance law prevents competition.
Money and politics have always and likely will always go together. At least under the old system, political parties and candidates were held accountable through reporting. A strict system of reporting, such as what President Bush is doing by going above and beyond reporting requirements and reporting all campaign donations regardless of size and posting them online is the direction we should move, not backward in the direction of less disclosure.
Matt Modell (mmodell@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science.
