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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics Spring 2000 When Campaign Finance Reform Is Unconstitutional: Remembering James Madison U.S. Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) Introduction Campaign finance reform is a subject that has inflamed passions all across the country for many years. Along the way, it has become easy for many to say that all of our ills as a nation are caused by incompetent politicians who have been bought by special interests through the process of campaign contributions. Who can possibly be in favor of such a system, they ask. Robert Samuelson, a well-respected columnist accurately summarized this circumstance when he recently wrote in the Washington Post: Few subjects inspire more intellectual conformity than "campaign finance reform." All "right-thinking" people "know" that election spending is "out of control," that the present system of campaign finance is corrupt and that only reactionaries block reform....Who cares if these common beliefs are either wrong or wildly exaggerated --or that most "reforms" would do more damage to democracy than any harm they might cure? The case against "reform" is almost impossible to make, because people's minds are closed. Over the past several years, as we have debated legislation in the Congress to "reform" the laws governing campaign expenditures, I believe there has been an issue at stake which is far more fundamental than campaign reform. In this debate, draped in the cloak of "reform" we are talking about the most crucial political questions that any society can confront; issues that were confronted and resolved by those we now refer to as the Founding Fathers. Accordingly, I believe it essential to frame this issue in a context that one might not normally think of when addressing the issue of campaign reform, but which I think is absolutely crucial to consider if we are to proceed without doing serious damage to American political traditions. James Madison's "Tenth Federalist" One cannot discuss fundamental questions of government in America without returning to the writings of James Madison, commonly called the "Father of the Constitution." On this topic, however, the appropriate reference is neither from the Constitution in its original form, nor the Bill of Rights as a set of amendments to it - both products of Madison's genius - but rather from a paper that has come to be known as "The Tenth Federalist," a political tract written during the time that the nation was debating the ratification of the Constitution. Many were afraid of the document because of the impact it would have on their existing government. James Madison, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton set forth, in a series of pamphlets that are now known as The Federalist, the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings of American government. The edition from which quotations are taken here is The Federalist (New York: The Modern Library, n.d.). In the tenth of this series of publications, Madison addressed the fundamental question of what to do about what we now call "special interests," or in the 18th century vernacular, a "faction." In the 10th Federalist, Madison defines faction as "a number of citizens...who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." I can think of no better description of a special interest than this one. Madison then tells us, There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction:... re moving its causes [or]... controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction:...by destroy ing... liberty ...[or] by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests__[T]he first remedy ...[is] worse than the disease. Certainly all Americans would agree with this. Controlling the mischiefs that come from special interests by destroying the basic liberty that guarantees to each his or her own right of opinion would destroy the very basis of the nation in which we live. Madison goes on to say, "The second...is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible...different opinions will be formed....The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man...." No contemporary writer could place the situation more 89 |
