Washington, D.C. -- The effort to enact significant campaign finance reform cleared a major hurdle recently when the U.S. House of Representatives gave bipartisan support to legislation to ban national parties from raising and spending soft money and to reign in campaign ads masquerading as issues ads. As a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform, I am a strong supporter of the Shays-Meehan (McCain-Feingold) Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. Passage of this bill would improve the process by which we conduct elections. I hope the bill finally makes it to the desk of President Bush whom, according to his spokesman, believes “the bill is an improvement over the present system.”

Public perception that candidates are bought and sold has contributed to voter cynicism about the current political process. Many Americans believe that the big money from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals buys influence and interferes with the ability of elected officials to make policy decisions based on the best interest of their constituents and the nation as a whole. Enactment of Shays-Meehan would enhance local involvement in campaigns and help restore the public’s faith in our electoral system.

In the days following passage of the bill, I received several questions, which I would like to address.

Question: What would Shays-Meehan do?

Answer: The bill would ban national parties from raising and spending soft money and ban federal officeholders and candidates from soliciting soft money for parties at any level. The bill would also require sham “issue ads” to be treated as campaign ads, which would prevent labor unions and big business from using union dues and corporate treasury money to pay for the ads. Instead, the ads would have to be paid for with hard money raised under the standards of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which governs candidates, political parties, and political action committees.

Question: What is soft money?

Answer: Soft money is the unlimited, unregulated, and undisclosed contributions that corporations, labor unions, and individuals make to national political parties to benefit federal candidates.

Question: What is a sham “issue ad”?

Answer: Ads that are designed to influence federal elections, but omit words like “vote for” or “vote against” in order to evade current campaign finance law.

Question: Would the bill limit free speech?

Answer: No. Groups remain free to communicate with the members, run political ads, and produce non-partisan voter guides with no restrictions. The bill would only require groups that spend $10,000 or more on broadcast commercials that mention specific candidates 60 days before an election to pay for them with hard money -- money that is limited, disclosed, and voluntarily given. Individuals could run their own independents ads with no limits.

Question: Would the bill be unconstitutional?

Answer: That is a question to be decided by the judiciary branch, but I don’t think so. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is constitutional to limit political contributions in order to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption. Many people believe that soft money is a corrupting force in American politics and could therefore be regulated constitutionally.

Question: Would the bill mean the end of political parties?

Answer: No. National parties would be able to raise and spend regulated -- or hard money. Furthermore, the bill would increase the amount individuals may contribute to state parties for federal elections from $5,000 to $10,000. This money could be used for party building, strengthening grassroots support, and turning out the vote.

Question: Would the bill make it more difficult to defeat incumbents?

Answer: Eliminating soft money would level the playing field and make elections more competitive.

Question: Would Shays-Meehan handicap candidates opposed by millionaire candidates who finance their own campaigns?

Answer: No. The bill would allow a candidate running against an opponent who spends more than a threshold amount of their own money to raise hard money contributions at triple the usual limit and to receive additional coordinated party expenditures.

Elections should be about selling ideas, not buying votes. By banning soft money, the Shays-Meehan bill would help restore the integrity of campaigns. The bill wouldn’t end the debate regarding campaign finance reform, but it would significantly improve the present system.