|
 Monday, March 26, 2001 Working Its Will By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON -- The story is told of the corrupt Albany judge who called opposing trial lawyers into his chambers. "You offered me a $5,000 campaign contribution to throw this case to the plaintiff," said the fair-minded judge, "and defendant's lawyer here just offered me $10,000 to find for his client. Now how about plaintiff giving me $5,000 more, evening things up -- and we try the case on the merits?" Whether the bidding war that is now American politics will continue in this fashion is to be decided in the Senate this week. Every senator knows the subject cold and need not rely on staff expertise or party discipline for guidance. Rarely do voters see such a revealing free-for-all. Money talks, but money is not speech. That, in essence, is the offense and defense of campaign finance reformers. That heavy political contributions influence officeholders is beyond dispute. Money for "access" rarely qualifies as prosecutable bribery, but the biggest givers are usually the biggest receivers. The pros know that a quo has a way of following a quid and the public is not stupid.
But the hurdle that Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold must jump is this: does the restriction of money in campaigns deny anyone freedom of speech? Of course it does. But we abridge free speech all the time, in protecting copyright, in ensuring defendants' rights to fair trials, in guarding privacy, in forbidding malicious defamation and incitement to riot. Because no single one of our rights is absolute, we restrain one when it treads too heavily on another. That's why our courts have held repeatedly in the past century that the Constitution permits restrictions on political contributions. Just as antitrust laws encouraged competition in business, anti-contribution laws have enhanced competition in politics. Freedom of speech is diminished when one voice who can afford to buy the time and space is allowed to drown out the other side. Washington opponents of campaign finance reform offer less lofty arguments, too.
Tomorrow the senators seeking to keep in place the Clinton-McAuliffe fund-raising abuses that so polluted the 90's will offer the Hagel substitute for the McCain-Feingold bill. It's sabotage, plain and simple, "limiting" soft-money gifts to a half-million dollars per fat-cat family per election cycle. Senators, fresh from offending billionaire candidates and
from thumbing the eye of the powerful broadcasters' lobby,
should cherry-pick a few items from the Hagel substitute, up
the hard-money limit to $2,500 and take their chances on a
sore-loser filibuster by voting down the all-or- nothing
trick. If that's the will the Senate works, I think
President Bush would tut-tut and sign
McCain-Feingold. That's because I'm an optimist and believe
in the two-party system.
Related items:
|
The
fugitive billionaire, with $250,000 to the
Anti-Defamation League, induced its national
director to lobby President Bill Clinton for
forgiveness and thereby bring glee to the hearts
of anti-Semites. Abe Foxman should
resign.
-- William Safire
David Irving