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October 12, 2004

Frogs, Meet Stork

Jonathan Rauch pithily entitles his latest piece in Reason:

Fix the McCain-Feingold Law

Oops—Can I Say That?

It's a good question.

Rauch lists notes that "The United States of America has a federal bureaucracy in charge of deciding who can say what about politicians during campaign season" - and lists some of the absurdity that's ensued:

Item—In June, the FEC ruled that the Bill of Rights Educational Foundation, an Arizona nonprofit corporation headed by a conservative activist named David Hardy, could not advertise Hardy's pro-gun documentary (The Rights of the People) on television and radio during the pre-election season. The FEC noted that the film featured federal candidates and thus qualified as "electioneering communication." Hardy, according to news accounts (I could not reach him by phone or e-mail), yanked the film until after the election.

Item—On September 9, the FEC ruled that a conservative group called Citizens United was not a "media organization" and therefore could not use unrestricted money to broadcast ads marketing a book and film critical of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "Not everyone can be a media organization," said one FEC commissioner.

Item—Also on September 9, the FEC ruled that the Ripon Society, a Republican group, could run TV ads touting the anti-terrorism efforts of "Republicans in Congress" because no political candidate was referred to in the ads.

Item—That day, the FEC also ruled that a Wisconsin car dealership, called the Russ Darrow Group, could continue using its own name in its car ads during the election season. Russ Darrow Jr., the patriarch of the company and father of its current president, was running for Senate in Wisconsin (he lost in the primary). The FEC found that the dealership's ads were not "electioneering" because they did not feature the candidate himself.

So, looking back on this last year - on Air America, on MoveOn and ACT and George Soros and whatever 527s aroused your personal ire, can you honestly say that McCain-Feingold has improved our electoral process?

Pundits routinely call this "the dirtiest campaign ever" (although I doubt they'd ever call any campaign anything else); wasn't McCain-Feingold supposed to fix that?

I'll throw everything I have behind a candidate who vows to repeal McCain-Feingold.

Posted by Mitch at October 12, 2004 07:35 AM | TrackBack
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