Love politics? Well, you’ll have more to love soon now that the Supreme Court recently knocked down a major hunk of “campaign finance reform.” Conservatives are treating the ruling like the Second Coming, while liberals are acting like the Supremes shot their puppy.
The issue was the federal McCain-Feingold 60-day blackout period on “independent” expenditures – basically attack ads by “single issue” zealots. With mindless ads from the candidates already at saturation, having “issue groups” out of the picture might first appear to be a relief.
It certainly was a relief for politicians and parties, which both remain limited in the donations they can grovel for. Once limited out, if you get “swift-boated,” you can’t go back to the well.
But … there’s some hooks here. For 60 days, the debate becomes the exclusive bailiwick of the campaigns and the “mainstream” media. For the campaigns, I lean toward the idea of letting them control their own destiny within limits.
However, if the warring campaign kitties are even, then the press gets default control of the narrative – not just the expected endorsement editorial, but control of the “news” reporting on the campaigns and candidates.
Frankly, with certain exceptions that will remain nameless, I don’t trust the “mainstream media.” I’m not alone … the liberals over at Pew Research conducted a poll last year showing only 18 percent of Americans think the press deals “fairly with both sides.” Pew even found that the perception “gap” between liberal and conservative bias is now a “very lopsided” 28 percent: 50 percent liberal bias and 22 percent conservative bias.
If the press is biased against you, you must buy your way in. McCain-Feingold prohibited that, which outraged everyone, right and left.
But then, the Supremes went a step further. For the first time in years, corporations will now be able to directly buy political ads for and against candidates, but still not directly bribe them with donations. The sides split, of course, when it came to “corporate” speech.
Whether corporate speech is good or bad is besides the point. Good or bad isn’t the real reason Congress passed the “bipartisan” McCain-Feingold “reform” and the 60-day blackout.
The real reason for any regulation of political funding, is gaming the system to muzzle your political enemies. That’s a bipartisan goal … that ends up harmful to everyone.
The city council race in Whitefish exemplifies how dysfunctional and ineffective political campaign finance controls in general, and in Montana, currently are.
A lot of money was involved because, geeze, the election wasn’t just about potholes and police. A lot of money hangs on which direction the new council will go from here.
So, people with money threw money at the election. Rick Blake, Tim Grattan and Sam McGough tossed thousands into “independent expenditures” on behalf of new blood, while on the other side was Dan Weinberg, who put out a post card in support of Frank Sweeney.
To be blunt, while the “independents” duked it out, the actual candidates were just along for the ride. They weren’t running their own campaigns, even though Chris Hyatt and Sweeney certainly acted like they were. They got out there and got the checks, sure enough, but Montana has puny limits for individual contributions, $160 per election. Sweeney decided to add $3,000 of his own money after he had tapped his “well.”
There was, however, a redeeming feature of Whitefish’s election: After a little bit of hide-the-money kabuki, everyone knew who was tossing money around and why – before the election.
Voters had a chance to decide for themselves whether they agreed or not, and voted accordingly. Amazing, isn’t it?
Post-Supremes, there will be renewed efforts at “reform,” as usual aimed at “controlling” the money. But trying to control political money is like trying to run a pig auction without showing all the pigs.
Future reform needs to focus on transparency and timely disclosure. Voters deserve to see all the pigs and who fed them before they bid in the election.