Campaign “Reform” Is a Recipe for Repression

D. J. Tice

D. J. Tice is an editorial page writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This article is reprinted from the Pioneer Press.

Criticize any one politician, and you’re likely to start an argument. Find fault with any one political party, and its defenders will set you straight.

But if you long to inspire universal approval and agreement, simply condemn all politicians, all parties, and the entire American political system as hopelessly corrupted-bought and paid for. Everybody will admire your moderation and insight.

To some extent, this curious pattern grows from the useful knowledge that our choices are important even though they are only choices among flawed human beings. But today’s exaggerated sense of our political system’s wickedness, combined with fiery partisanship, has also helped generate undeserved support for an assault on civil liberties called campaign finance “reform.”

Everyone takes the position they do on campaign finance “reform” partly because they think “reform” will either help or harm their preferred party and policies. But proponents of “getting money out of politics” have done by far the better job of concealing their self-serving motives-particularly from themselves. They see their crusade as a noble mission to reduce the corrupting political influence of wealthy individuals, businesses and other special interest groups.

Opponents of “reform” need to see their position as defending the bedrock tradition of free government-uninhibited political debate.

The campaign finance changes under consideration are unjust government restrictions on political expression-limits on criticism of elected officials and would-be elected officials. They are what the American Civil Liberties Union has called them-“a recipe for political repression.”

The complex bill passed by the House this week comes down to two key restrictions. It would ban “soft money” from federal elections. This is unregulated money given to political parties. Increasingly, parties use it to fund “issue ads” that praise their candidates or blast their opponents.

The bill would also restrict “issue ads” paid for by independent groups, dramatically constraining meaningful participation in elections by organizations representing many millions of Americans.

Just as remarkable is the fact that media blowhards like myself would not be silenced by this crackdown on debate. Right up to election day, journalists would remain free to endorse or denounce candidates, and to have their work distributed by the large corporations they work for.

I don’t know why this worrisome loophole remains-or how America can truly be cleansed of unfair political influence until it is closed. Perhaps reformers will get around to abolishing freedom of the press in due course.

Does that sound ridiculous? Good. Now explain to yourself, if you can, why the government should be able to limit the political expression of every organization in America except media companies.

Limits on political spending are promoted, of course, as a necessary antidote for the corrupting power of campaign money. The Enron scandal has intensified fears that interests spending lavishly on politics receive policy favors that may imperil the broader public welfare. No one can deny this ever happens. All the same, it is worth noting that Enron executives, despite all the political good will they purchased, were not rescued when the crisis came and are not escaping consequences.

The fallacy, in any case, doesn’t lie in the belief that our current political free-for-all creates problems-of course it does. The fallacy lies in supposing that our political life would be improved by setting government up in the business of deciding who can express themselves politically, and how much, and when.

If we don’t trust politicians to put the public interest ahead of self-interest under a system that leaves them open to exposure and criticism from any direction, why would we trust them to do so once they have substantially quieted their detractors?

Once unfettered political competition is outlawed, powerful interests will seek other, less visible ways to curry government favor. Politicians may find less reward in protecting weaker minority segments of society and more reward in pandering to a tyrannical majority.

Think of the politicians you most distrust, wielding this new power to redistribute free speech rights. Think about it carefully.

There are other possible ways of diluting the influence of money in politics-more public financing of campaigns, say, or more term limits. Whatever the drawbacks of such devices, they at least do not infringe the free political expression of the people.

The framers of our republic believed wide open political competition among all of society’s conflicting factions would produce, not perfect virtue in government, and not polite politics, but the least injustice and best balance of interests possible among imperfect human beings. They believed this so fully that they placed a sweeping guarantee of free speech at the beginning of the Bill of Rights.

We must hope the Supreme Court will remember this and strike down most of the new “reforms” should the politicians decide that repressing politics is, just now, the best politics of all.