Must read from WaPo! "McCain Feingold: Reform That Has Really Paid Off"

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30/AR2007033002070.html

Reform That Has Really Paid Off
By Norman Ornstein and Anthony Corrado Jr.
Sunday, April 1, 2007; B03

The most striking result of McCain-Feingold has been the spectacular resurgence of political parties. Far from withering, as critics predicted they would at the time of passage and as they continue to reiterate, our parties are richer, and stronger at the grass roots. In the two elections held before BCRA, the national parties raised a total of $2.1 billion, nearly half of it in unregulated "soft money" -- six- and seven-figure donations from corporations and wealthy individuals. In the two elections since, the parties raised exactly the same amount, but all in "hard money," meaning smaller contributions from individuals and PACs. The parties had to shift their focus to the recruitment of small donors. Both have taken advantage of the Internet and other fundraising tactics to add more than a million new grass-roots supporters to their donor rolls. Small donors are now the largest source of party money.

Consider the 2006 elections. In the previous midterms, in 2002, half the money raised by the national party committees was soft money. In 2006, individual donors who each gave less than $200 were the largest source of party donations, accounting for $1 of every $3 raised. The importance of those who give $20,000 or more has greatly diminished. In 2002, these donors were responsible for 46 percent of all party money, including soft contributions. In 2006, they provided only 12 percent of party resources. In all, the parties raised $309 million from small donors, compared with $108 million from the biggest donors.

Nearly all the party soft money raised in 2002 was channeled directly into television and radio ads, most of them attacks on opponents. Only a tiny share of the ads even mentioned the party that sponsored them. A much larger share of the money raised in 2006 went to party-building, grass-roots and get-out-the-vote efforts, all signs of party-building from the bottom up.

<>As members of a campaign finance working group in the late 1990s, we both helped to structure BCRA. We saw its provisions as narrowly targeted and incremental, not revolutionary. We thought the law would produce a flowering of grass-roots party activity, a resurgence of small donors and a reduction in the sale of access to elected officials in return for campaign funds -- and a decrease in the shakedowns of donors that this practice induced. But we thought it would take several election cycles for the changes to take root. Instead this happened immediately.

[CTLawGuy]

1. What's important is not the amount of money

but where it comes from. It's hard to be beholden to a special interest bankroller when such people are thousands of hundred dollar donors. What we don't want is large amounts of money coming from a single source.

[Mass]

2. 527 are not accounted in Ornstein's rosy scenario.

As long as we will not find a way to constitutionnally limit the amount of money that is spent in a election, nothing will really change.

The person who will get the most money will be elected, not the one who is the most equipped to govern.

Unfortunately, Ornstein, with his libertarian mind, is totally opposed to real solutions to real problems. He is the perfect type of Democrats' problem: because we refuse to fight conservatism as an ideology, we make people like Orstein look acceptable. The real problem is that, while he seems a fairly decent Republican, his ideas are still very wrong.

[karynnj]

5. Not to mention the inadvertent disadvantage to the party out of power

if the candidates stick within the public financing. Their general election window starts earlier - in 2004, thanks to McAuliffe's date - the GE funds had to be spent over 13 weeks to the Republicans' 8 weeks.

This year several candidates already have said they will opt out - so M/F may have killed public financing.

As to the parties becoming stronger, the Republican infastructure was built over decades. 2004 was the first year of M/F. On the Democratic side, the party strength should be credited to Dean, while the increase in donors should be crdited to both Dean and then Kerry doing a fantastic job with intenet solicitations. That would have happened without K/F - it was a result of a popular movement and the maturation of the internet.

[flpoljunkie]

7. The internet has certainly helped make raising money in small amounts infinitely easier than before.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Senators McCain and Feingold introduced S.463 to regulate 527's on 1/31/07

S.463

Title: A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify when organizations described in section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 must register as political committees, and for other purposes.

Sponsor: Sen McCain, John (introduced 1/31/2007) Cosponsors (1)
Related Bills: H.R.420

Latest Major Action: 1/31/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
COSPONSORS(1), ALPHABETICAL : (Sort: by date)

Sen Feingold, Russell D. - 1/31/2007

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00463:@@@P

Link to bill particulars: http://thomas.loc.gov Type in S.463

The House companion bill, H.R. 420, was introduced by Re. Marty Meehan D-MA on 1/11/07.

[flpoljunkie]

9. Feingold Statement on Closing the 527 Loopholes

Closing the 527 Loopholes

http://www.feingold.senate.gov/issues_campaign_reform.html

The McCain-Feingold did not solve all the problems with the campaign finance system, as we saw with the 2004 presidential election. Some groups that were heavily involved in trying to influence that election took the position that they did not have to register as federal political committees and therefore did not have to comply with the contribution limits applicable to such committees. Prohibited by the McCain-Feingold bill from giving large contributions to the political parties, many wealthy donors began to give money to those groups. Even though there is a strong arguement that these so-called 527 groups were violating the federal election laws that pre-existed the McCain-Feingold bill, the FEC took no action to enforce those laws.

This is why in Febuary of 2005 I joined Sen. McCain in introducing S.271, the 527 Reform Act. Our legislation will require all 527s to register as political committees unless they fall into a few narrow exceptions. This bill would also require 527s that engage in activities that affect both federal and state elections pay for those activities with at least 50 percent federal ("hard") money. Finally, contributions to the non-federal accounts of federal political committees would be limited to $25,000 per year. Read a fact sheet on the 527 bill.

The growth of 527s does not represent a failure of the McCain-Feingold bill, but it does illustrate that more needs to be done to protect our political system and legislative process from the undue influence of big money.

(The 2005 527 Reform Act was apparently reintroduced on 1/31/07. It went nowhere with a Republican controlled Congress.

[bread_and_roses]

3. Public funding of elections

Clean elections. Nothing else will address the problem of our bought and sold politics. Certainly not these labyrinthine regulations. If they are so successful, why "K Street?"

[flpoljunkie]

4. I agree re public funding. Durbin's bill would allow a $500 tax credit for individuals for

political donations. I think this would bring even more small donations to the process.

Remember when we could deduct a $100 tax credit?

[TomClash]

8. "Party Money"

is not the same as the money the individual candidates raise. Corporate money still rules the roost where it counts. It's easier to raise a lot of it very quickly.

It takes 2,000 DU donors to give an average of $50 apiece to each Democratic candidate to match AIG's contributions alone.