McCain-Feingold Reality Clashes With WSJ Narrative
The Wall
Street Journal‘s editorial board on Wednesday leveled an oft-repeated but
misleading attack on the law commonly known as McCain-Feingold. The Journal, an opponent of campaign finance
reform, took a measure of satisfaction in arguing that John McCain’s
fundraising deficit is due to the very legislation he sponsored:
The ultimate irony – perversity, if
you’re a Republican – is that the great champion for today’s system is none
other than John McCain. Having pushed for the government to limit money in
politics, he is being outspent – and, should the polls hold, beaten – thanks in
part to the laws he worked tirelessly to put on the books.
What the Journal and other drive-by critics of campaign
finance reform miss is that McCain-Feingold was not really intended to limit money in
politics and certainly was not intended to limit campaign contributions to
candidates. The law actually doubled the maximum amount an individual could
contribute to candidates, from $1,000 to $2,000 per election (a figure since
adjusted for inflation to $2,300).
What McCain-Feingold did was stop the political parties
from accepting corporate or union contributions, which candidates were already
prohibited from doing. An honest attack on McCain-Feingold would have to start
with a claim that the country was better off with the political parties trading
favors in exchange for corporate and union contributions of hundreds of
thousands – and sometimes millions – of dollars (in 2002, for example, Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac lavished $4.2 million in soft money on the two major
parties).
If the Journal wants to make that argument, we would welcome
the debate.