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sisyphusshruggedwhat are the odds?
PRESIDENT BUSH takes credit for signing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, but then subverts the reality of reform. The latest example was his delay in naming a new commissioner, Ellen L. Weintraub, to the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Bush promised Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to install her swiftly, but he waited until after the commission this week decided the critical problem of how to define and regulate spending coordinated among candidates, parties and interest groups. The delay left in place for that rulemaking a lame-duck Democratic commissioner who has repeatedly joined the three Republican commissioners in weakening key provisions of the law and who once again voted for a weak rule. It takes four commissioners to change the rule, so the three Republicans can now make sure their damage is not repaired.
The new rule effectively turns a provision ordering the FEC to restrict coordination into one that openly permits it much of the time. The subject is important, because the ban on unlimited donations of "soft money" becomes meaningless if candidates and parties can simply get interest groups to run ads for them. People and groups have the right to spend their own money independently on behalf of candidates. But the law needs to ensure that these groups do not become simple fronts. The commission had recently taken too lax a view of what coordination means, so Congress had instructed it to reconsider.
The new rule, however, defines coordination so as to exempt whole categories of advertising campaigns that seem obviously covered by the law's text. No matter how clearly coordinated an ad that runs more than 120 days before an election may be, for example, the rule considers it uncoordinated unless it expressly calls for the election or defeat of a candidate. And no matter how much a candidate and interest group may have cooperated in the days even immediately before an election, the FEC will not regard as a coordinated expenditure any public statement that doesn't mention a party or candidate explicitly. In other words, President Bush could write ads throughout the election cycle for the National Rifle Association and ask the group to run them, so long as those ads did not engage in express advocacy outside of the 120-day limit or mention specific candidates within it. This is not a meaningful restriction. It is a conscious policy to defy congressional will.
PRESIDENT BUSH takes credit for signing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, but then subverts the reality of reform. The latest example was his delay in naming a new commissioner, Ellen L. Weintraub, to the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Bush promised Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to install her swiftly, but he waited until after the commission this week decided the critical problem of how to define and regulate spending coordinated among candidates, parties and interest groups. The delay left in place for that rulemaking a lame-duck Democratic commissioner who has repeatedly joined the three Republican commissioners in weakening key provisions of the law and who once again voted for a weak rule. It takes four commissioners to change the rule, so the three Republicans can now make sure their damage is not repaired.
The new rule effectively turns a provision ordering the FEC to restrict coordination into one that openly permits it much of the time. The subject is important, because the ban on unlimited donations of "soft money" becomes meaningless if candidates and parties can simply get interest groups to run ads for them. People and groups have the right to spend their own money independently on behalf of candidates. But the law needs to ensure that these groups do not become simple fronts. The commission had recently taken too lax a view of what coordination means, so Congress had instructed it to reconsider.
The new rule, however, defines coordination so as to exempt whole categories of advertising campaigns that seem obviously covered by the law's text. No matter how clearly coordinated an ad that runs more than 120 days before an election may be, for example, the rule considers it uncoordinated unless it expressly calls for the election or defeat of a candidate. And no matter how much a candidate and interest group may have cooperated in the days even immediately before an election, the FEC will not regard as a coordinated expenditure any public statement that doesn't mention a party or candidate explicitly. In other words, President Bush could write ads throughout the election cycle for the National Rifle Association and ask the group to run them, so long as those ads did not engage in express advocacy outside of the 120-day limit or mention specific candidates within it. This is not a meaningful restriction. It is a conscious policy to defy congressional will.
