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The First Amendment simply reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances." The First Amendment has been debated, challenged and upheld. Even in the most unlikely of places it appears again; the campaign finance reform debate.
In 1976, the Supreme Court
held that most political expenditures constitute "speech" and therefore fall
under the protection of the First Amendment.
This week the McCain-Feingold bill was re-introduced with new provisions that will
increase the chances of Senate approval. The "slimmed-down McCain-Feingold" bill
is causing concern among independent non-party organizations.
It says that if such groups run
ads within 60 days of an election mentioning the name of the
candidate the funds financing those ads must meet federal
election law disclosure requirements and limits. Currently,
independent groups need not meet such requirements as long as
their ads don't expressly call for the election or defeat of a
particular candidate.
 Rep.
Mike Pappas (R-NJ) serves on the House Oversight Committee currently
planning hearings on various campaign reform proposals. As a part
of the committee, Pappas is working to ascertain the facts, "my sense
is that people want full disclosure and a review of why existing laws
are not enforced before complicated laws are made more confusing."
Pappas also serves on the National Security and Small Business committees.
 Rep.
Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) is part of the Bipartisan Freshman Task Force
on Campaign Finance Reform that has been charged with examining the
proposed campaign finance bills. According to Tauscher, "the large
sums of unregulated contributions to the political parties and the
anonymous ads run by third party organizations caused the last election
cycle to be the most expensive and least accountable election in our
nation's history."
This forum addresses the following issues: Should the First Amendment be applied to campaign spending? Should independent non-party organizations run issue ads on
radio or on television explaining what issues are at stake in the
upcoming election?
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