The Court also ruled that government cannot limit the amount a candidate can contribute to his or her own campaign, and it ruled that the government cannot limit independent expenditures by interest groups. The Court, however, stated that governments can require candidates to limit spending of their own money and their campaign money, if they voluntarily choose to accept public funding. Although the Court's
ruling concerned the Federal Election Campaign Act, its principles apply to state governments as a result of the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result of the Buckley decision, spending limits cannot occur without public funding.(54)
Many reform proponents support spending limits and, therefore, disagree with the Court's ruling in Buckley. The Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force, which met during 1996 and 1997, issued the following statement in its final report: "The task force joins the growing national sentiment in favor of mandatory spending limits on political campaigns, and therefore strongly supports efforts that would result in a reconsideration of Buckley v. Valeo by the Supreme Court."(55) That viewpoint, however, is not unanimous among all pro-reform groups or individuals.
The Brookings Institution's Michael Malbin, a leading campaign-finance scholar, supports contribution limits but opposes spending limits for campaigns. He believes that spending limits restrict candidates but do not restrict interest groups, who can still use soft money and issue advocacy to their advantage. He argues that spending limits encourage parties and interest groups to invent new ways to participate in elections. As a result, he contends that spending limits undermine modest campaign-finance-reform goals, which can otherwise be achieved.(56)
Public funding is another option, albeit a controversial one. Divergent types of public funding include direct cash grants, matching grants, and subsidies that candidates can only use for specific purposes. Public funding already occurs at the federal level through the following: dollar-for-dollar matching grants to candidates in the presidential primaries that meet certain criteria, subsidized political conventions, and direct grants to presidential candidates.(57) At the state level, Maine publicly finances campaigns for gubernatorial and state legislative candidates who gather a required number of five-dollar contributions. It requires subsidized candidates to waive all private contributions and to refrain from using their personal money. Although the national ACLU has expressed its support for public financing, the Maine ACLU has joined the state's Right to Life in opposition to the law.(58) While proponents say public financing frees the campaign system from interest-group control, critics say it amounts to welfare for politicians.
Recent campaign-finance-reform bills have failed in Congress. On February 26, 1998, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott pulled the McCain-Feingold bill from the floor after the vote to end a Republican filibuster did not gain enough votes to end the filibuster. The bill--supported by a majority of Democrats and seven Republicans, including its cosponsor, Sen. John McCain of Arizona--would have banned soft-money contributions to political parties, required disclosure of contributions that pay for independent "issue" advertisements, and prohibited union and corporations from funding those advertisements.(59) On March 30, 1998, the House debated four Republican campaign-finance-reform bill, but the Republican leadership prevented the leading reform bill, the bipartisan Shays-Meehan bill, from ever coming to the floor for a vote.(60) Two of the bills were approved; one banned contributions from foreign citizens, and the other required faster disclosure. One of the failed bills was the Paycheck Protection Act, which would have required unions to get the written permission of their members before spending dues for political activism.(61) Both the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association condemned the bill.(62)
Despite the recent setbacks for reformers, the campaign-finance-reform battle is far from over. Pro-reform groups attack the current campaign system as controlled by wealthy persons and interest groups rather than average citizens. Anti-reform groups counter that the reformers want to violate the free-speech rights of average citizens, who comprise the membership of interest groups. Both sides will continue to spend enormous amounts of time and money. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans will continue to raise millions of dollars in donations.
1. David Rogers, "Campaign Reform Is Returning to Center Stage, but Not for Long," Wall Street Journal, 9 February 1998.
2. Howard Fineman, "You Can Call Him Caught," Newsweek, 15 September 1997, 77.
3. Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff, "Gore in the Balance," Newsweek, 13 October 1997, 42- 43.
4. Peter Baker, "1997, It's a Wrap," George, January 1998, 66.
5. Fineman, "Caught," 77.
6. Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, "The Man in the Middle," Newsweek, 21 July 1997, 34.
7. Baker, "1997 Wrap," 69.
8. Jeffrey M. Berry, Lobbying for the People (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 7.
9. Jill Abramson, "As Bill Died, Lawmakers Turned to Other Business: Raising Funds," New York Times, 27 February 1998, East Coast late edition.
10. Jeffrey M. Berry, The Interest Group Society (New York: Longman, 1997), 31.
11. John Gardner, "A Web Page Welcome from John Gardner," About Common Cause; available from http://www.commoncause.org/about/gardner.htm.
12. Common Cause, "Common Cause Today," About Common Cause; available from http://www.commoncause.org/about/today.htm.; Berry, Interest Group Society, 100.
13. Common Cause, "Common Cause Victories," About Common Cause; available from http://www.commoncause.org/about/success.htm.
14. Becky Cain, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight On the Federal Election Commission; available from http://www.lwv.org/testimonyfec398.htm.
15. League of Women Voters, "A Mighty Political Experiment," League of Women Voters; available from http://www.lwv.org/mightus.html.
16. Loree Bykerk and Ardith Maney, "Consumer Groups and Coalition Politics on Capitol Hill," Interest Group Politics, ed. Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis (Washington: CQ Press, 1995), 272.
17. Becky Cain and Eleanor Revelle, "Urgent Action Needed: Urge Your Representative to Sign the Campaign Finance Reform Discharge Petition," League of Women Voters, 3 April 1998; available from http://www.lwv.org/cfrdischarge498.html.
18. League of Women Voters in Illinois, "A Voice For Citizens, A Force For Change," League of Women Voters of Illinois; available from http://www.il.lwv.org/lwvil.
19. Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, ICPR Steering Committee Membership; Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Steering Committee Agenda, 23 January 1998.
20. Public Interest Research Groups, The United States Public Interest Research Group; Available from http://www.pirg.org/uspirg/index.htm.
21. "More Results," Illinois PIRG Citizen Advocate, Fall 1997, 4.
22. Public Campaign, "Organizational Profile," Clean Money, Clean Elections; available from www.publicampaign.org/who.html.
23. Andrea Higbie, "Cleaning Up the Midwest," New York Times, 9 December 1997, East Coast late edition.
24. Paul Cohan, "Illinois Lawmakers Target Personal Use of Campaign Money," in The Price of Free Speech: Campaign Finance in the Midwest (Lombard, Ill.: Midwest Legislative Conference of State Governments, 1997), 3-4.
25. Andrea Higbie, "Cleaning Up the Midwest."
26. Bradley A. Smith, "Our Freedom Is at Stake." USA Today, 8 July 1997.
27. Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, First-Ever Web Site for Illinois Campaign Finance Reports Unveiled, 22 January 1998.
28. ICPR, Steering Committee Membership.
29. ICPR, Web Site Unveiled.
30. American Civil Liberties Union, "Issues of the 105th Congress: Support Constitutional Campaign Finance Reform," In Congress; available from http://www.aclu.org/congress/campaignfinance.html.
31. Berry, Interest Group Society, 2.
32. Tony Blankley, "The Case for Cash," George, January 1998, 44.
33. Ibid.
34. Mitch McConnell, "At Stake: 1st Amendment," USA Today, 26 February 1998.
35. National Rifle Association, "First Amendment Still in Jeopardy?," NRA Grassfire, May 1998.
36. Christian Coalition, "Campaign Finance Reform," Christian Coalition Action Alert; available from http://www.cc.org/alert.html.
37. National Right to Life Committee, An Open Letter from the National Right to Life Committee to the Nation's Roman Catholic Bishops; available from http://www.nrlc.org/mccainbishop.html.
38. "A Sign-Up List for Reform." New York Times, 6 April 1998.
39. Laura W. Murphy and Joel Gora, "Letter to Senator McConnell," ACLU Freedom Network; available from http://aclu.org/congress/1s021998a.html.
40. Ibid.
41. Burt Neuborne, A Survey of Existing Efforts to Reform the Campaign Finance System (New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 1997), 3-4.
42. Ibid.
43. Kent Redfield, "The Good, the Bad and the Perfect: Searching for Campaign Finance Reform in Illinois," Spectrum 69, no. 2 (1996): 38-42.
44. Cohan, "Illinois Lawmakers," 4.
45. ICPR, Web Site Unveiled.
46. Neuborne, Survey of Existing Efforts, 5.
47. Clyde Wilcox and Wesley Joe, "Dead Law: The Federal Election Finance Regulations, 1974- 1996," PS, Political Science & Politics 31 (1998): 14-17.
48. Neuborne, Survey of Existing Efforts, 6.
49. Wilcox and Joe, "Dead Law."
50. Berry, Interest Group Society, 56-57.
51. Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force, Tainted Democracy: How Money Distorts the Election
Process in Illinois and What Must Be Done to Reform the Campaign Finance System (Springfield, Ill.: University of Illinois at Springfield, 1997), 39.
52. Berry, Interest Group Society, 58.
53. Buckley v Valeo, 424 US 1 (1976).
54. Ibid.
55. Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force, Tainted Democracy, 25.
56. Michael Malbin, "Reform Lessons from the American States: Charting the Middle Ground Between Disclosure and Public Financing," speech to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Steering Committee, Chicago, Ill., 23 January 1998.
57. Neuborne, Survey of Existing Efforts, 10-12.
58. Public Interest Research Groups, Campaign Finance Reform at the State Level; available from http://www.igc.apc.org/pirg/demos/cfr/states.htm.
59. Helen Dewar, "Campaign Finance Bill Dies in Senate," Washington Post, 27 February 1998, final edition.
60. Alison Mitchell, "Main Election Bill Dies in the House," New York Times, 31 March 1998, national edition.
61. "GOP Campaign-Finance Bill Is a Big Loser, Just As Planned," Boston Globe, 31 March 1998, third edition.
62. Michael D. Simpson, "Will Congress Gag NEA Members," NEA Today, March 1998.