McCain Feingold Faux Campaign Finance Reform

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has been a high profile spokesperson on campaign finance reform for more than a decade, passing McCain Feingold, the most recent attempt to reign in campaign finance corruption. But now McCain is accused of benefiting from loopholes – the use of 527 groups.  Two of McCain's close advisers, Senators Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman sit on the board of Vets for Freedom, a 527 group that supports the Iraq War.  To better understand 527 groups and McCain Feingold, Election Unspun's Dori Smith has this primer.
 
        When first introduced in 1995 the McCain-Feingold bill called on candidates to voluntarily limit their campaign spending. It would have banned political action committee, or PAC, contributions.

        At the time over 4,000 PACs registered with the Federal Election Commission were able to use cash to make or break a candidate's career. The goals of that initial bill were to curtail the influence of wealthy corporations and organizations by imposing stricter limits on the amount that individuals and groups could give to candidates.

         Republican opposition organized a filibuster to defeat McCain-Feingold and heated debates went on for seven years. Resubmitted, the bill became a political football and by the time a stripped down version was signed into law in 2002 it contained twenty two amendments. One amendment increased the cap on individual donations to candidates from $1,000 to $2,000. That amount in what's often called 'hard money' would also increase as campaign costs went up. Today the cap on individual donations is $2,300.

         Gary Kalman is Federal Legislative Office Director with U.S. Pirg, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups:

        Gary Kalman: We were one of the groups that criticized the doubling of the hard money limits and predicted that it would allow rich people to dominate the system and once again we've found a skyrocketing of money that's going into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. And while Barack Obama has managed to increase the number of small donors if you take a look at the political fundraising large donors are still the predominant source of the money. So yes McCain-Feingold of the 1990s was a lot stronger and more promising than I think what was ultimately delivered in 2002.

         The McCain-Feingold law also contains a millionaire's clause that let's candidates raise more money when they are running against a rival with unlimited amounts of personal funds to put into a campaign.

         The most controversial portion of the bill however is the ban on so-called 'soft money' contributions. These are funds donated to national political parties instead of the candidate.

         Mary Boyle of Common Cause explained why a soft money ban was important:

         Mary Boyle: Unions, corporations, and wealthy people were writing unlimited six sometimes seven figure checks and giving them to the political parties with a wink and a nod in terms of exactly where they wanted them to go, which campaigns. It was an end run around the individual contribution limits.

         Under McCain-Feingold individuals could still also contribute as much as $28,500 by giving the funds to the party and the still powerful PACS. And through a loophole in the soft money limits non-profit advocacy groups called 527s are able to receive and spend unlimited funds. The 527s claim to work on voter registration or send out political fliers but they are often partisan and influential.

         One example of a 527 group is the now infamous 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth', which smeared John Kerry's campaign in 2004. It provides an example of another kind of campaign finance related problem early reformers were concerned about: Advertising.

         Under McCain-Feingold the 527 groups are not supposed to earmark the money or coordinate their funds to support or detract from a candidate. That's what was done in the old days of 'soft money'. Yet campaigns have been able to skirt such rules by getting surrogates to coordinate fundraising events for them.

         The candidates receive the maximum collected through individual donations, at these events and then, since the states are permitted to receive much higher amounts, the parties simply bundle the state and federal contributions together to boost the national ticket.

         For instance in April John McCain announced that he had set up the "McCain Victory 08" fund involving four battleground states. Also on May 14th the Democratic National Committee announced the formation of a joint fundraising committee called the "Democratic White House Victory Fund." Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have signed an agreement with the DNC to support the fund.

         Finally, the most controversial component of the McCain-Feingold law was advocacy group's use of Ads during the final 60 days prior to an election. It was one of many aspects of McCain-Feingold that infuriated Republicans and free speech proponents like the American Civil Liberties Union.

         The case went to the Supreme Court via a Wisconsin Right to Life group. The court would eventually find in favor of the group despite opposition from the Federal Election Commission. Chief Justice John Roberts threw out the advertising limits in McCain-Feingold by a 5-4 decision.  

         Craig Holman is a Campaign Finance Lobbyist for Public Citizen:

         Craig Holman: We now have a Roberts court that just last year in the Wisconsin Right to Life Case has poked major holes back in to the McCain-Feingold law rendering it close to what we use to have prior to 2002.----We are going to see an obscene amount of money spent on electing our president this year around. Probably on the order of one billion dollars, for the first time ever in US history,  is going to be spent on buying the White House.

          Groups like US Pirg, Public Citizen, Common Cause, and others, have been gaining ground with new legislation they are supporting though Senator Russ Feingold and proponents of campaign finance reform have had to move on without support from Senator McCain. There are new bills limiting 527s and the amounts a presidential candidate may spend.
     
       
 
PART 2:
While updates to McCain Feingold have been proposed, such as imposing spending limits to 527 groups, many reform groups think the real change needs to come in the form of updated public financing. Campaigns are fully financed by the taxpayers, where fundraising is not necessary. Gary Kalman is Director of US Public Interest Research Group talks about legislative efforts to pass public financing.