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Show HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS SPRING 2001 as touting many of the legislative victories of the Clinton White House, without actually mentioning or advocating the victory of President Clinton. There was just one catch: these so-called issue advertisements featured, as a commentator, none other then President Clinton. At no time during these advertisements did the President mention his own campaign or urge voters to consider him at the ballot box on election day. Despite this, the clear message to voters was that President Clinton was on television talking about the legislative victories he had won while in office. Under current Federal Elections Commission laws, this type of "issue advertisement" is completely legal and totally unregulated. In response to these advertisements, the Republican National Committee unleashed a barrage of ads featuring their own presidential candidate Bob Dole attacking popular Democratic Party and Clinton Administration positions on issues. In response to the ballooning phenomenon of soft money, many members of Congress have called for some kind of reform. Two such members of the House of Representatives, Representative Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Representative Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) recently drafted a sweeping reform bill which, among other things, sought to ban the use of soft money by all federal and local parties. House Resolution 417 (referred to as the Shays-Meehan Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1999) would ban national party committees, including the political parties' national congressional campaign committees, from soliciting, receiving, directing, or spending soft money. In the fall of 1999, the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCFRA) narrowly passed the House of Representatives and failed in the Senate by a razor thin margin. The bill attacks issue advocacy by defining "express advocacy" (i.e. advertisements specifically advocating the failure or victory of a given candidate and hence subject to regulation) as anything "using wording (phrases etc.) that could only be construed as specifically favoring a particular candidate, referring to a specific candidate in paid advertising within 60 days of the election, or expressing unmistakable, unambiguous support for or opposition to one or more clearly identified candidates" (Hope 1999, 5-6). This bill, by far the most comprehensive and successful attempt at true campaign finance reform since the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1974, brings up several important legal issues with reference to the constitutionality of placing restrictions on political contributions. Opponents of Shays-Meehan claim that at its best, the bill is grossly unfair and at worst, unconstitutional. Much of the opposition stems from the provision of the bill which seeks to ban "sham issue ads" (Keller 1999a). Detractors say that such language is a gross restriction on groups' first amendment rights to communicate their opinions on specific issues of concern to the public and to their supporters. Opponents of Shays-Meehan to claiming that several Supreme Court landmark cases concerning campaign funding and the First Amendment right to free speech have emphatically held that all types of speech not specifically defined as "express advocacy" in campaigns are protected from restriction or regulation by the government. Perhaps the most credible argument of Congressional Republicans working to defeat the Senate companion bill to Shays-Meehan, the McCain-Feingold Bill, named after Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is that a ban on soft-money would be tantamount to unilateral Republican disarmament (Keller 1999b). This argument maintains that the Republicans advantage on soft-money fund-raising is balanced out by the labor unions' overwhelming volunteer, organizational, and financial support afforded many Democratic campaigns. Therefore, opponents of Shays-Meehan assert, without a valid attempt on the part of the government to regulate the ability of organized labor to draw campaign hard-dollars from members as well as advocate specific candidates' victories, a ban on soft money would unfairly harm the Republican Party's ability to get its message out. Concerning the question of the constitutionality of restricting "non-express advocacy," the Shays-Meehan Bill clarifies the definition of express advocacy in simple terms: if it walks and talks like an "express advocacy" advertisement, it is one and should therefore be regulated under the umbrella of federal laws which govern all other campaign expenditures. Shays-Meehan provides a solid base for reform by not simply shifting the soft money raising apparatus to state parties, as the Republican Party's reform plan would do, but by banning the use of "non-federal" dollars across the board, with specific exceptions on the state level for very clearly defined party building activities not relating to the election or defeat of any federal candidate (Van Natta 1999). The Shays-Meehan legislation closes the floodgates of unlimited, unregulated, and unaccounted for corporate and individual cash that flows right past federal elections regulations and into federal races. By forbidding national party committees from accepting, spending, or even directing the flow of soft money, this legislation deals a decisive blow to the wealthy and powerful special interests which have for so long eroded the public's confidence in their elected leaders. Despite the obvious logic and overwhelming public support for meaningful campaign finance reform, its future is not by any means assured. In the fall of 1999, the Senate barely filibustered a mirror version of the Shays-Meehan legislation. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), known to some as "Darth Vader" because of his defiance to any campaign finance reform legislation, led the battle against the McCain-Feingold measure. McCain-Feingold called for a complete and immediate ban on soft-money dealings by national party committees, but did not address the topic of "issue advertisements" as a concession to conservative Republicans bent on defeating any measure for reform. While McCain-Feingold ultimately perished in the Senate in the wake of a filibuster, it did manage to gain a bipartisan majority of support, just 6 votes shy of 59 |