WASHINGTON — House Republicans have come forward with a new approach to the conundrum of campaign finance reform. It won't become law this year, but it may point the way to the future.
The bill that came out of the House Oversight Committee last week, headed for an early floor vote, essentially reverses the traditional definition of reform--drying up private contributions to campaigns and limiting the cost of our elections--and acknowledges that as both a practical and constitutional matter, those constraints are unworkable.
Instead, it takes the approach that, in the inevitable mix of money sources, everything possible should be done to enhance the role of two groups: a congressman's own constituents and the political parties.
Before explaining why this approach--which is very controversial--may make more sense than that advocated in the past by Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisan reform groups, let me pick a fight with the House Republicans on a collateral issue.
At the same time the Oversight Committee under Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) recommended steps to deregulate the financing of campaigns, the House Appropriations Committee under Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.) restricted the budget of the money watchdog, the Federal Election Commission.
Republicans can't have it both ways. If you move to "empower" constituents and parties to play a bigger role in campaigns, as they would do, you cannot shut down the main instrument of disclosure, the FEC. Livingston's committee even ordered the FEC press staff--which is at the center of the public disclosure process--cut from five persons to two. Two people to handle the thousands of inquiries from the press and public about who is paying for our presidential and congressional campaigns? Give me a break!
To understand the logic of the Thomas approach, you have to know two things. First, as a matter of constitutional law, the Supreme Court, almost each time it decides a campaign finance case, rules against restraints on political speech, which it rightly regards as the core value protected by that part of the First Amendment. Last month, in the most recent of those decisions, it blew a big hole in the restrictions on what political parties may spend in connection with congressional campaigns.
Second, the current scheme of regulation is driving more and more interest groups--all across the spectrum--to shift their priority away from contributions to parties and candidates and instead is encouraging them to boost their preferred politicians either through "independent expenditure" campaigns, or indirectly through "issue advocacy" campaigns.
The result has been that the money tide is rising--but the disclosure requirements that apply to old-fashioned contributions to, and spending by, parties and candidates are being evaded.
Classic reformers--Common Cause and its allies--have scrambled around for years to find ways to stem the tide. It hasn't worked.
Thomas has rethought the problem, and come up with a number of sensible ideas. His is far from a perfect proposal, but at least it moves the debate in a more productive direction.
First, he would require candidates to raise at least half their money in their home states or districts. Second, he would lift the $1,000 limit on individual contributions (unchanged, despite inflation, since 1974) to $2,500 and index it for the future. He would let individuals contribute virtually unlimited amounts to political parties and let the parties spend that money to eliminate some of the most important barriers challengers for Congress now face. The party, for example, could move in money to offset the amount a wealthy opponent spends on his or her own race, or the amount an incumbent builds up in the pre-election year in order to intimidate any possible challenger.
Democrats claim that the proposed rules would help the GOP--and they might, at least initially. But even Democrats concede that there is a logic to Thomas' approach beyond partisanship. In time, it may offer a way out of this maze.