From: Terri Buchman <buchman@osf.org>
Subject: Re: Democracy or Republic ?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A727BBF9C601080F@alimac5.osf.org>
X-Xxdate: Thu, 12 Nov 92 07:44:57 GMT
Organization: Open Software Foundation
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:44:44 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.212422.4399@anasazi.com> Mike Best,
best@anasazi.com writes:
>What are the implications of such campaign reform on an individuals
>right to free speech?  That is, by limiting the amount that someone
>gives to a candidate are we not limiting that persons "freedom of
>expression"?  This is a popular liberal viewpoint and I consider it
>highly hypocritical to only support this as religiously as they do
>when it is convenient for them to do so.  
>
>I am not implying that you are among them.
>
>Mike Best

Personal campaign contributions to fund one's own campaigns are not
currently limited.  I believe there was a court case that tested a
law that tried to limit personal contributions and the law was
declared unconstitutional for the reasons you mentioned.    Ross
Perot was within his legal rights to spend whatever he wanted on his
campaign.  (Ed Rollins, on one of the post election shows had the
best line about this.  He said that Perot did all his fundraising at
his ATM machine.)  But, obviously, the average individual or
candidate cannot match those resources.  The idea is to make the
playing field a little more level so that you don't have to be rich
to be elected.   Some of the ideas involved in campaign reform
include allowing candidates free TV time to express their positions.
 Another reform would be federal funding of senate and house
campaigns.   Any candidates that took the federal funding would not
be able to take any other money.   

However, that said, campaign reform is hardly a panacea.  Much of
the present problems with the national presidential campaign stems
from the financing reforms that Common Cause and other groups
pressed for.  Candidates now have matching funds for the primaries
and full funding for the national fall campaigns.  But there are
huge loopholes in these laws that have allowed 'soft money' to
become a problem.  Remember the dinner for rich republicans that
Pres. Bush gave.  This was for people who could give $100,000 or
more.  That money, by law, couldn't go to Bush for  his Presidential
campaign.  It could, however, go to the Republican party which could
use it to support independent ads for Bush.  The money could be used
for other Republican candidates or for administration costs.  Just
because Bush had federal funds didn't mean he stopped pursuing the
big bucks.

This is by no means limited to the republicans.  This year marks the
200th anniversary of the democratic party.  The bigwigs in
Washington wanted to throw a party and somebody made the suggestion
that some of the ordinary rank and file dems be invited.  Only
problem was nobody knew who they were.  The dems headquarters had
thousands of people on the big contributors list, but they did not
have a list of ordinary democrats.  They couldn't give a party for
the people because they no longer knew who they were.

I believe that reform is needed.  I would like to see big
contributors banned from throwing big parties at the political
conventions.  My tax money goes to support these spectacles and I am
offended at finding big business holding all kinds of parties and
seminars for the party faithfuls.  Their influence over government
is awesome and dims the influence of the average citizen.  Ross
Perot and Bil Clinton are on record as supporting financing reform
and I agree with them.  

TerriB.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution