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Campaign reform now in courts' hands
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Campaign reform now in courts' hands
Conservatives and liberals challenge election finance limits.
By Greg Gordon -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Monday, April 15, 2002
WASHINGTON -- In the predawn darkness, lawyers for the National Rifle Association arrived at the federal courthouse. Soon, legal representatives for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared.
Together, as the sun rose March 27, they awaited word that President Bush had signed into law the most significant rewrite of federal campaign finance rules in 28 years. Then, even as backers exulted over the law's enactment, the attorneys filed separate lawsuits asking the courts to strike it down as unconstitutional. The NRA won the race to be first.
It took six years for Congress to pass the measure aimed at getting some of the big money out of politics but only minutes for the law to be challenged in court. Now the pending legal fight, with teams of high-powered lawyers already assembled on both sides, looms as a make-or-break test for the law's supporters.
Opponents from both the political right and left -- among them building contractors, anti-abortion groups and the American Civil Liberties Union -- have made good on vows to join in the First Amendment challenges.
Frank Sorauf, a University of Minnesota professor of political science, says the courts face the task of "balancing two constitutional imperatives" -- protecting the First Amendment and keeping the political system free of the appearance of corruption.
The legal clash revolves largely around the thinly veiled "issue ads" that have flooded the airwaves in the weeks before recent federal elections, attacking or praising political candidates without directly calling for their election or defeat.
In the quarter-century since a 1976 Supreme Court ruling limited the reach of a post-Watergate campaign finance law, election lawyers have determined that corporations, labor unions, individuals and political parties could spend unlimited sums in campaigns free of federal regulation.
The key: Make sure their messages aren't too direct.
The national parties also concluded they could use unregulated soft money donations -- totaling nearly $500 million in the 1999-2000 election cycle -- to finance issue ads, circumventing decades-old bans on corporate and union political donations.
The new law bans all soft money donations. And it bars companies, unions and nonprofit groups from broadcasting issue ads that identify local or state candidates in the 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election.
McConnell, Congress' leading opponent of the law, and his allies argue that both provisions are overly broad and infringe upon free speech by restricting advertising expenditures. Their crew of legal stalwarts includes Floyd Abrams, a renowned, liberal First Amendment lawyer, and Kenneth Starr, a former U.S. solicitor general and the special prosecutor who sought President Clinton's impeachment.
In a phone interview, Abrams said he agrees that "there are issue ads which obviously are motivated by desires to influence elections." But under the law's restrictions, he said, "if the NRA or the Sierra Club puts an ad on within 60 days of an election that mentions a senator, their executives could go to jail. ... That is a direct punishment for speech."
Supporters, including Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar who was a key architect of the ad restrictions, argue that the law was carefully crafted to impose modest limits on advertising and does not severely encroach on the First Amendment.
The team defending the law is headed by ex-Solicitor General Seth Waxman and Roger Witten, a former Watergate special prosecutor. Their target is what they call "sham issue ads."
"This comes down to a question of what is appropriately defined as a campaign ad," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, a longtime crusader for the law and a member of the defense team. "Our argument is, the definition that has prevailed for the last 20 years doesn't match up with the reality."
Under the new law, he said, individuals could buy their own issue ads, and groups, companies or unions could air ads during the restricted periods by simply dropping the candidate identification or financing the ads through political action committees.
Under the law, a special three-judge panel was appointed to consider the case. Any appeals go straight to the Supreme Court.
The legislation, whose chief authors were Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., is not due to take effect until Nov. 6 -- the day after this year's congressional election. It's possible the lower-court panel could rule by then.
Sorauf said the courts must balance "the important First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, freedom of political association and political activity, and ... the need to maintain the integrity of our electoral processes."
The Supreme Court did some balancing in its 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo ruling on the last major campaign finance law. It upheld limits on campaign contributions to guard against "corruption and the appearance of corruption" that undermine public confidence in government. But it narrowly defined the expenditures that must be financed with those limited donations: only those directly advocating a candidate's election or defeat. And it struck down other spending limits, all but predicting a scenario like today's tide of issue ads.
"It would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy influence," the justices wrote, "to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the candidate's campaign."
In 1986, the court further clarified its focus on individuals' rights to free speech. It ruled that a Massachusetts state law limiting independent expenditures could not apply to an anti-abortion group that received no corporate or union funds.
Lawyers for both sides say the ruling appears to leave vulnerable to court challenges a provision authored by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., that would forbid late-campaign issue ads by nonprofit groups. Wellstone sought to narrow a loophole allowing wealthy individuals to spend unlimited sums on ads.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/2192825p-2584517c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Conservatives and liberals challenge election finance limits.
By Greg Gordon -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Monday, April 15, 2002
WASHINGTON -- In the predawn darkness, lawyers for the National Rifle Association arrived at the federal courthouse. Soon, legal representatives for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared.
Together, as the sun rose March 27, they awaited word that President Bush had signed into law the most significant rewrite of federal campaign finance rules in 28 years. Then, even as backers exulted over the law's enactment, the attorneys filed separate lawsuits asking the courts to strike it down as unconstitutional. The NRA won the race to be first.
It took six years for Congress to pass the measure aimed at getting some of the big money out of politics but only minutes for the law to be challenged in court. Now the pending legal fight, with teams of high-powered lawyers already assembled on both sides, looms as a make-or-break test for the law's supporters.
Opponents from both the political right and left -- among them building contractors, anti-abortion groups and the American Civil Liberties Union -- have made good on vows to join in the First Amendment challenges.
Frank Sorauf, a University of Minnesota professor of political science, says the courts face the task of "balancing two constitutional imperatives" -- protecting the First Amendment and keeping the political system free of the appearance of corruption.
The legal clash revolves largely around the thinly veiled "issue ads" that have flooded the airwaves in the weeks before recent federal elections, attacking or praising political candidates without directly calling for their election or defeat.
In the quarter-century since a 1976 Supreme Court ruling limited the reach of a post-Watergate campaign finance law, election lawyers have determined that corporations, labor unions, individuals and political parties could spend unlimited sums in campaigns free of federal regulation.
The key: Make sure their messages aren't too direct.
The national parties also concluded they could use unregulated soft money donations -- totaling nearly $500 million in the 1999-2000 election cycle -- to finance issue ads, circumventing decades-old bans on corporate and union political donations.
The new law bans all soft money donations. And it bars companies, unions and nonprofit groups from broadcasting issue ads that identify local or state candidates in the 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election.
McConnell, Congress' leading opponent of the law, and his allies argue that both provisions are overly broad and infringe upon free speech by restricting advertising expenditures. Their crew of legal stalwarts includes Floyd Abrams, a renowned, liberal First Amendment lawyer, and Kenneth Starr, a former U.S. solicitor general and the special prosecutor who sought President Clinton's impeachment.
In a phone interview, Abrams said he agrees that "there are issue ads which obviously are motivated by desires to influence elections." But under the law's restrictions, he said, "if the NRA or the Sierra Club puts an ad on within 60 days of an election that mentions a senator, their executives could go to jail. ... That is a direct punishment for speech."
Supporters, including Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar who was a key architect of the ad restrictions, argue that the law was carefully crafted to impose modest limits on advertising and does not severely encroach on the First Amendment.
The team defending the law is headed by ex-Solicitor General Seth Waxman and Roger Witten, a former Watergate special prosecutor. Their target is what they call "sham issue ads."
"This comes down to a question of what is appropriately defined as a campaign ad," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, a longtime crusader for the law and a member of the defense team. "Our argument is, the definition that has prevailed for the last 20 years doesn't match up with the reality."
Under the new law, he said, individuals could buy their own issue ads, and groups, companies or unions could air ads during the restricted periods by simply dropping the candidate identification or financing the ads through political action committees.
Under the law, a special three-judge panel was appointed to consider the case. Any appeals go straight to the Supreme Court.
The legislation, whose chief authors were Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis., is not due to take effect until Nov. 6 -- the day after this year's congressional election. It's possible the lower-court panel could rule by then.
Sorauf said the courts must balance "the important First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, freedom of political association and political activity, and ... the need to maintain the integrity of our electoral processes."
The Supreme Court did some balancing in its 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo ruling on the last major campaign finance law. It upheld limits on campaign contributions to guard against "corruption and the appearance of corruption" that undermine public confidence in government. But it narrowly defined the expenditures that must be financed with those limited donations: only those directly advocating a candidate's election or defeat. And it struck down other spending limits, all but predicting a scenario like today's tide of issue ads.
"It would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy influence," the justices wrote, "to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the candidate's campaign."
In 1986, the court further clarified its focus on individuals' rights to free speech. It ruled that a Massachusetts state law limiting independent expenditures could not apply to an anti-abortion group that received no corporate or union funds.
Lawyers for both sides say the ruling appears to leave vulnerable to court challenges a provision authored by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., that would forbid late-campaign issue ads by nonprofit groups. Wellstone sought to narrow a loophole allowing wealthy individuals to spend unlimited sums on ads.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/2192825p-2584517c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
"...does not severelyencroach on the First Amendment." The unmitigated gall!!!
We all remember how we got to where we are with infringements on the Second Amendment. A little bit at a time. "It won't effect hunters and target shooters."
Here comes the nose of the camel again!
Mudge the really PI$$ED
I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS!
Edited by - mudge on 04/16/2002 13:25:36
Edited by - mudge on 04/16/2002 13:27:24