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Campaign Finance Reform
527 Reform *
Internet Campaign Finance Law * Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act * Federal
Election Administration Act * Presidential
Public Financing
527 Reform
On April 5, 2006, I voted for H.R.
513, the 527 Reform Act, which I introduced to
bring 527 organizations, such as the Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth and the Media Fund, under campaign finance laws governing
all other organizations seeking to influence federal elections.
The legislation passed by a vote of 218 to 209.
The fact is activity by 527 organizations is campaign-related
and should be regulated by the Federal Elections Commission
(FEC). I joined Congressman Marty Meehan and Senators John
McCain and Russ Feingold to introduce this legislation. This
bill will close the election law loophole created by the FEC's
failure to enforce the 1974 Federal Elections Campaign Act
(FECA).
You may be interested to know, after the FEC refused to enforce
the law, I sued the FEC for failing to do so. On March 30,
2006, the D.C. Federal District Court ruled that the FEC had
failed to substantially justify its decision to not regulate
527s and instructed the FEC to either regulate 527s or justify
its refusal.
I am hopeful the FEC will choose to do the right thing and
bring these groups under campaign finance law, though its
track record is to undermine it.
Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code provides tax-exempt
status for political groups such as candidate campaigns, party
committees, PACs, and other political committees.
Under current law, section 527 organization need only disclose
their receipts and expenditures to the Internal Revenue Service,
not the FEC, even though many have spent huge sums of money
to influence federal races.
FECA requires 527 groups whose major purpose is to influence
federal elections, and who spend more than $1,000 for this
purpose, to register as federal political committees and comply
with federal campaign finance laws.
The FEC, however, has for 30 years improperly interpreted
FECA to allow 527 organizations to spend millions of dollars
to influence federal elections without complying with federal
campaign finance laws.
Since BCRA was passed and signed into law in 2002, certain
527 groups have actively exploited the loophole created by
the FEC's interpretation of FECA, spending millions of dollars
to influence federal races.
This upsurge of outside groups expressly created to support
or oppose candidates for federal office has magnified the
long-standing lack of regulation that has allowed 527 groups
to operate beyond the realm of federal campaign finance law,
and has underscored the need to substantially reform the FEC.
Now we are seeing huge amounts of soft money flow back into
the political process, despite the intent of Congress in passing
BCRA, President Bush's intent in signing it, and the Supreme
Court's intent in upholding the law.
Internet
Campaign Finance Law
I believe a balance needs to be struck when considering how
to regulate political activity on the Internet. While no one
is interested in limiting people's ability to debate political
ideas on the Internet, there is also no reason to allow corrupting
soft money back into our campaign finance system via cyberspace.
I was pleased on March 27, 2006, the Federal Elections Commission
(FEC) issued new regulations on Internet campaign activity
that effectively solved the problem by ensuring political
activity on the Internet would not be prevented by campaign
finance laws and ensuring no loophole for soft money would
be created.
The FEC had to develop new regulations because Congressman
Meehan and I sued the FEC when they introduced regulations
in 2004 that ran afoul of our campaign finance reform legislation,
the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. In striking down the proposed
FEC regulation that contained language identical to H.R.
1606, the Online Freedom of Speech Act, federal
district court Judge Kollar-Kotelly found that the proposal
"would permit rampant circumvention of the campaign finance
laws and foster corruption or the appearance of corruption."
On November 1, 2005, Congressman Marty Meehan and I introduced
H.R.
4194, the Internet Anti-Corruption and Free Speech Protection
Act. This legislation would exempt blogging websites
and incorporate blogging websites from campaign finance law
to ensure websites whose primary purpose is political discourse
is not be prevented from encouraging this debate from occurring.
I also supported
H.R. 4900, the Internet Free Speech Protection Act,
a proposal put forward by the Center for Democracy and Technology,
which gave web loggers (bloggers) a more comprehensive exemption
from campaign finance laws than our bill.
On November 3, 2005, I voted against H.R. 1606, because,
while it exempts blogging websites from campaign finance law,
it would also eviscerate the soft money ban and allow unlimited
labor union dues and corporate treasury money back into the
campaign finance system. In my comments on the House floor,
I stated:
If this law were to pass, a member of Congress could simply
go to
a large donor, corporation or union and control their spending
of
$1 million in soft money to pay for political advertising
all over
the Internet.
On June 3, 2005, Senators McCain and Feingold and Representative
Meehan and I
wrote filed comments with the FEC to express
our views on how BCRA should apply to the regulation of political
activity on the Internet. In our comments, we stated:
Therefore, the basic principles of the federal election
laws must apply
to campaign activity on the Internet for which significant
money is
spent, just as they apply to other forms of campaign activity.
The
fact that the Internet allows citizens to be involved in
political
discourse by spending very little money or no money at all
is not
reason to exempt such activities when they involve the spending
of
significant sums of money.
Because we have no interest in stifling legitimate political
discourse, we wrote:
The opportunities that the Internet provides for average
citizens to
participate in political debate are the most significant
change in the
way that campaigns are conducted since the advent of television.
The
Commission must tread very carefully in this area so as
not to stifle
the virtually limitless potential of this exciting medium.
Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act
I was grateful to be the sponsor, with Congressman Marty
Meehan of Massachusetts, of H.R.
2356, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA),
the House companion to Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold's
legislation in the Senate. The bill passed the House on February
14, 2002, by a vote of 240 to 189 and the Senate by a vote
of 60 to 40 on March 20. President Bush signed H.R. 2356 into
law on March 27, 2002.
On December 10, 2003, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court
upheld nearly all elements of BCRA, agreeing with Congress
that the law complies with the First Amendment.
I am particularly pleased to report on the success of the
BCRA. The national parties raised $1.2 billion in hard money
in 2004, more than they raised in combined hard and soft money
in 2000. The parties were able to recruit more donors than
ever before and increased the cash they raised overall. A
few large donors were replaced by hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of smaller donors. BCRA played an essential role
in this upsurge in participation.
This law in large part ended a system in which corporate
treasury and union dues money drowned out the voice of individual
Americans by banning unlimited -- and often undisclosed --
soft money contributions and closing the sham "issue
ad" loophole.
No campaign finance reform proposal is perfect. But the new
law represents meaningful changes that will go a long way
in improving the current system -- a system almost everyone
agrees was beyond broken.
Federal
Election Administration Act
To ensure free and fair elections, it is essential that federal
election law is fully implemented and fairly enforced. It
is imperative that the FEC execute the will of Congress with
respect to all campaign law, but they have consistently failed
to do so.
For this reason, I joined Congressman Marty Meehan and Senators
John McCain and Russ Feingold to introduce H.R.
5676, the Federal Election Administration Act.
This legislation would replace the existing six-member Federal
Election Commission with a three-member Federal Election Administration.
By improving the way the campaign law enforcement body operates,
this legislation will ensure federal election law is fairly
implemented and fully enforced.
For a
Bill Summary, Click here
Presidential
Public Financing
The public financing system for presidential elections, which
aims to allow candidates to run competitive campaigns without
becoming overly dependent on private donors, is a system worth
improving and preserving.
Several factors -- including the front-loading of the primary
process, the emergence of extremely wealthy candidates and
the unpopularity of the tax check-off -- have combined to
render the system of presidential public financing in serious
need of repair.
In the last Congress, on November 21, 2003, I joined with
Congressman Marty Meehan to introduce H.R.
3617, the Presidential Funding Act. Senators
John McCain and Russ Feingold introduced identical legislation
in the Senate.
H.R.
3617 makes several changes to the presidential
public financing system which will make the public financing
system more attractive to candidates and more fair for those
who choose to participate.
Our legislation will make the system attractive enough to
once again be accepted by all the leading candidates for the
entire election cycle by significantly increasing the spending
limit for the primaries and the amount of public money available
to participating candidates.
The bill also makes public grants available earlier in the
process by moving the starting date for the payment of public
funds to primary candidates from January 1 of the election
year to July 1 of the previous year.
Finally, it doubles the amount of money the parties can spend
to assist their presumptive nominees, and requires participating
candidates to limit their spending in both the primary and
general elections.
H.R.
3617 seeks to fix the public financing system
so that it can continue to fulfill its important function
in our democracy. Our hope is that a bill can be enacted to
take effect for the 2008 presidential election.
Additional information on campaign
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