This week, the U.S. Senate began debating the highly anticipated McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. It is being challenged by competing bills, such as the Hagel Bill, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
McCain-Feingold is the first such measure to be debated in a quarter century. The last major campaign reform that took place was during the Nixon years, and many today debate whether those reforms went too far or whether they even went far enough.
Not much has changed, for the current bill is being praised by members of both major parties for its attempts to rid politics of soft-money contributions. It has also been chided by both Republicans and Democrats for infringing on the right to free speech.
With both sides heating up, the debate over campaign finance reform has just begun.
It's a political holdup
-Jessica Lee
In the aftermath of every election, campaign reform always seems to poke its nose into politics. Starting Monday, the American people have locked up their senators in the Capitol building. And they will be stuck there until a compromise to the McCain-Feingold proposal has been wrestled down to the floor.
It is rumored that at dusk you can hear the Republicans whimpering for their mommies.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was right on when he commented, "We have come down to two categories of candidates in America, the M&M categories - the multimillionaires and the mere mortals."
The little guy has been getting banged by the buck.
Although McCain seems like a lone cowboy in the land of money-grabbing political outlaws in D.C., we should not get our hopes up. At best, the proposal is another hypothetical solution.
What's occurring on Capitol Hill is not the Democrats trying to convince the Republicans to buy into their campaign-reform plan. Rather, our senators are having to become extremely crafty and creative under pressure. In order to save our good ol' system of American politics, they must slyly produce a bill composed of subtle loopholes to place on Dubya's desk.
Folks, the money will get to both parties one way or another. If we mortals were smart enough, we would trap the senators in their buildings until they bribe us to let them out.
Let's give them a taste of their own medicine. They are the ones with the access to the money, after all.
Bill doesn't go far enough
-Lora J. Mackel
McCain-Feingold is only the first step in what will prove to be a very long process of political reform. The bill has already been amended to such an extent that it would do very little to change the system. Like most key bills, this one is going to be shredded to hell and back and will not make it through to the end. The bill is just a jumping-off point for negotiations. It would be na•ve to think any politician - regardless of party affiliation - would vote for the bill, because they have to worry about running for re-election against wealthier opponents in the future.
The publicity surrounding the bill adds a small incentive for politicians to lend their time to reforming it. However, both parties are too afraid they will lose supporting money and constituents to take a bold stand on the issue.
The problem is really that politics and money go hand and hand. Today's political game is played with splashy ads and polls, things that do not come cheap. But when they are actually voted into office, these politicians answer less to the people and more to their donors.
McCain-Feingold simply does not go far enough. To really strengthen the democratic process and to ease the power money has over elections, full public funding for elections needs to be instituted. Limiting soft money simply will not end the corruptive influence money has on the political system.
Hagel bill a practical alternative
-Tom McDermott
Who would benefit more from passing the McCain-Feingold Bill - the Democrats or Republicans? Conventional wisdom would say that the Democrats would benefit because Republicans receive more soft money donations from corporations than Democrats do from corporations and unions combined. But when you factor in contributions from wealthy individuals, the answer isn't as clear.
Bill Clinton managed to turn every aspect of his presidency into a fund- raising opportunity, with the help of mega-fund raiser Terry McCauliff and his legendary Herculean efforts. Since then, the Democrats have been the undisputed champions at separating multi-millionaires from their leather wallets.
The vast majority of donations to the Republic National Committee - for which there is no federally mandated cap for individuals - have come in the form of gifts of $100 or less. This is not so for the Democratic Party, where Hollywood-star powered, $10,000-a-plate fund raisers have emerged as the primary weapon against the supposedly rich and greedy Republicans.
The Hagel Bill seems to be an attractive alternative to the "throw the baby out with the bath water" approach of McCain-Feingold. Hagel's bill protects First Amendment interests by capping union and corporate donations to political parties, without banning soft money completely. It also raises the limit of an individual contribution directly to a candidate, which has been stuck at $1,000 since Nixon was president.
That unreasonably low limit is part of the reason soft money donations are currently sky-high.
Fighting for the common man
-Cory Spiller
The argument that banning soft-money contributions would restrict freedom of speech is ridiculous, shortsighted and wrong. What opponents of McCain-Feingold forget is that in the current system, those who does not have large campaign funds already have their freedom of speech restricted simply because they cannot afford to compete.
Is that what we want? To live in a country where only the rich have the power of speech?
I thought ours was a government of the people and for the people. Americans scoff at European countries with monarchies and royalty, but that seems to be exactly what we have created.
The American nobility are those who can afford to run for office without party support, and our two-party system is like two royal houses battling for the throne. And, of course, that makes little Georgie an heir to the throne.
Opponents of McCain-Feingold are biting their nails through this one because if they lose, they know that they have lost many of their privileges.
If we can't pass McCain-Feingold, we will be stuck with the aristocracy we have thus far created. Promises have been made that they will fight for the common man. But how can they? They have fortunes to protect. Only the common man can justly govern our nation, and the only way a common man has the chance to be heard is if we give him back his freedom of speech.
Bill is sure thing, right?
-Laura Winsky
There are five sure things in this world. Death, taxes and hour-long exams are the first three. The last two are perhaps less obvious - money is the mother's milk of politics, and McCain-Feingold is the cure-all.
Well, at least the bill has the potential to be.
But the prospects right now are beginning to darken. Yesterday, an amendment was added to the bill by a 70-30 vote. It will help elected officials who have to face opponents who privately fund campaigns with their own greenbacks.
A surefire way to protect incumbents, eh?
But that's the least of McCain-Feingold's problems. Campaign finance reform is scary. It means that the process through which most of our elected officials came into power would be forever gone. Dubya and, yes, people like Clinton and Gore would have to reinvent the wheel.
And the mental picture of Bush trying to sort through any kind of brain- teaser like campaign finance is a good, hearty laugh.
So picture, if you will, an entirely new playing field. With the millionaires and the celebrities out of the picture, who would you like to see in the president's throne? Er, chair.
Who would you like to see run for office? Who would you vote for? How smart, charismatic and sincere would they be? A world run by leaders instead of the wealthy. One can dream, right?
