The Day for Clean Money.

PositionSteps that may lead to campaign finance reform

The good news behind the early success of John McCain--other than wiping the smirk off George W.'s face, as cartoonist Jules Feiffer noted in his "op art" in The New York Times--is that many citizens are responding to McCain's call for campaign finance reform. While he himself has dipped his hand in the cookie jar, McCain nevertheless recognizes the pernicious effect of money on politics. Along with Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, McCain has pioneered legislation in Congress that would ban "soft money"--the hundreds of millions of dollars in unlimited contributions to the two main political parties.

This may be the day, finally, for reform. If even Bush is forced to call himself a reformer, you know the winds have changed in our direction.

For years, the Mandarins in Washington have said that reform is a dead letter. But the people--and the courts--are proving them wrong.

More than 60 percent of Americans are in favor of public financing if candidates refuse to take private money and agree to limit their expenditures, says Nick Nyhart, deputy director of Public Campaign, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., that supports full public financing of elections.

Proponents of campaign finance reform got a big boost from the Supreme Court in January when it upheld Missouri's limits on contributions. In 1994, the Missouri legislature enacted a bill that set ceilings on contributions, ranging from $250 for local offices to $1,000 for statewide offices, and added an adjustment for inflation. A political action committee named Shrink Missouri Government PAC sued because it said its rights were violated when it could not contribute more than $1,025 in 1997 to Zev David Fredman, who was running for the Republican nomination for Missouri state auditor. Fredman also joined the suit.

They both argued that the $1,000 limit the U.S. Supreme Court placed on individual contributions in its landmark ruling Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 was now too low because of the inflation that has taken place in the ensuing twenty-three years. And they said that the state of Missouri had not cited empirical evidence of corrupt practices or of a perception among Missouri citizens that large contributions exercise a corrosive influence.

A 6 to 3 majority of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, ruled against the plaintiffs on all, grounds. Regarding the evidence needed to demonstrate corruption or the appearance of corruption...

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