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| REFORMING CAMPAIGNS | |
 March 27, 2000  |
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Both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush weighed in on the topic of campaign finance reform Monday. Will either candidate's plan work? Three experts discuss the issue.
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GWEN IFILL: Campaign finance reform; Vice President Gore is now saying it would be his number one priority if he's elected president. Speaking in Milwaukee today, Gore called for a ban on so-called soft money, the unrestricted contributions made to political parties. He's also proposed the creation of a new $7.1 billion fund to pay for House and Senate campaigns.
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| Discussing the issue | ||||||||||||||||||||
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GWEN IFILL: Joining me now to discuss this issue are three key players in the debate over campaign finance reform. Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a strong opponent of limiting contributions to political campaigns. Democratic Congressman Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, co-author of campaign finance reform legislation in the House. And, Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan public policy organization that promotes comprehensive campaign finance reform. Senator McConnell, what did you think of Vice President Gore's proposal today?
GWEN IFILL: Congressman, Meehan, is that true that the Vice President is supporting taxpayer-financed elections?
GWEN IFILL: Fred Wertheimer, would his plan work? Among other things, it only applies to the House and the Senate not to presidential campaigns.
GWEN IFILL: Haven't we heard this promise before from our previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton - FRED WERTHEIMER: Yes. That's the next critical point. The Vice President clearly has credibility problems here. He's got credibility problems in terms of his own campaign finance problems, the campaign finance abuses of this administration, and the fact that President Clinton made a similar commitment at least of a top priority without fulfilling it. But what Vice President Gore spelled out today is the beginning of, I think, a serious commitment that he can make to build credibility. You can't do it in one speech. But if he spells out, over time, the kind of commitment that would lock him in to top priority, early treatment of this issue by Congress, then I think he can build credibility with the American people on campaign finance reform. |
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| Gore's plan: Violating free speech restrictions? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Well, presumably, Gwen, there would be caps on how much candidates could speak. And there are also draconian proposals seeking to require television stations, as I understand it, if you made an issue advocacy campaign mentioning somebody's name, as I understand the Gore proposal, the television station would turn around and have to offer, if they could figure out who was on the other side of it, offer them free time. I mean you'd have to have a massive federal speech police to kind of figure out what everybody was saying and tell some people to shut up and, by the way, if you said this, another group was entitled to respond. I mean, it is... it would make... The federal election would soon be the size of the Pentagon in terms of the number of people who would be required to police all of this speech in America. This is a truly draconian proposal that reminds me of what the ACLU said about a proposal similar to this that Bill Bradley had. They called it a recipe for repression. And I think that is precisely what it would be. GWEN IFILL: Congressman Meehan, what do you think about that?
GWEN IFILL: You've endorsed Vice President Gore. What about the credibility question? This is a man who has had many questions raised about his ability to stay within the laws as they were written. REP. MARTY MEEHAN: And he certainly has admitted he's made mistakes. But, you know, nobody comes to this debate with clean hands. The fact is Republicans and Democrats alike have been aggressively raising money, soft money, hard money or any other kind of money in order to try to win the next election. So nobody comes to this debate with clean hands. The question is when it's time to elect a President, who is more likely to change this corrupt system? And I believe that clearly Al Gore is more likely to change this system. GWEN IFILL: Is there a way to fix this in the primaries as well as the general or is that something that's just out of reach?
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| Bush's plan: Phony reform? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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GWEN IFILL: Senator McConnell, let's talk about the fellow you endorse: George W. Bush. He has his own campaign finance reform plan. It would ban corporate and union but not individual soft money contributions and call for disclosures of campaign contributions on the Internet. Would you support his plan?
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Well, that is at least a starting place. Senator Hagel, who as you indicated was a McCain supporter, has generally been on my side of the campaign finance issue but has come up with a new bipartisan approach that we're actually going to use in the Rules Committee this spring as a vehicle for both hearings and ultimately marking up a measure that might be truly bipartisan in scope. GWEN IFILL: What about that, Congressman Meehan? Do you think that that kind of approach is workable at all? REP. MARTY MEEHAN: Well, no, I don't. I think the "New York Times" in today's editorial got it right when they called that proposal phony reform. It's not real reform. There are too many loopholes. Frankly I think the "New York Times" got it right this morning when they called Governor Bush's proposal a toothless sham. The fact of the matter is many of us have been working in a bipartisan way for many, many years in the Congress to come up with a bill that is fair to both parties. It reduces the influence, the corrupting influence of soft money, and that's McCain-Feingold. In the House we're able to have a bipartisan group of members join together to pass Shays-Meehan. Listen, let's finish the job now. Then we can look next year at more comprehensive reform. But, you know, you have a minority number of Senators holding up in a filibuster a bill that is supported by the majority of members of the Senate, a majority in the House and the President will sign it. Let's get it done now. Then we can talk about comprehensive reform next year. GWEN IFILL: Fred Wertheimer, a final assessment, a reality check, if it's possible, Senator McConnell is even saying nice words about Senator Hagel's proposal and as he is as staunch an opponent of campaign finance reform as there is, does that mean there's an opening this year for something to happen, or does it mean we're going to be where we were last year this time? FRED WERTHEIMER: Not in terms of Senator Hagel's proposal. I mean, Senator McConnell is saying nice words about it in part because it will not solve this problem, in my view. And Senator McCain has made clear that he will not support this effort. My assessment: One comment -- I think Senator McConnell is offering fool's gold to the American people when he tells them that Senator McCain's efforts were... had nothing to do with campaign finance reform in this election. They were the core of his campaign. This has always been a very, very tough fight. And it remains a tough fight. And it will remain a tough fight this year and we'll have partisan wars over the elections, but I think we're getting close and I think if you have a President of either party who is truly committed to treat this as an immediate top priority for the country, that would advance the cause of campaign finance reform. GWEN IFILL: Senator McConnell, I do have to give you a chance to respond to that.
GWEN IFILL: Gentlemen, thank you all very much. |
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AL
GORE: This is a non-partisan endowment for our common democracy. You
can't give, under this proposal, to any one party. You can't give to
any one candidate. Every qualified candidate will have access to these
funds according to a formula that is based on the district or state
in which they are running, the views of the donor will have absolutely
no influence on the views of the recipient. In this way, we will break
the connection between the giving of money and the gaining of influence
in these election contests. To raise the funds for the endowment, I
propose a 100% tax deduction for any individual or corporation that
contributes on a first-come, first-serve basis until the endowment is
filled. And as soon as it is filled, the tax deduction will sunset.
Those who wish to take advantage of it will have an incentive to help
fill it up quickly. As President, I will work aggressively to secure
the funding of this endowment. And I will seek the help of every corporation,
every union, every major foundation, every dot-com millionaire and billionaire
and every other citizen in the entire United States of America. 
GWEN
IFILL: Texas Governor George W. Bush was quick to respond today in a
statement released by his Austin headquarters, Bush said the Vice President's
plan was "a taxpayer-financed government takeover of campaigns
that replaces individual spending decisions with decisions made by an
unelected government committee." He went on to say that his own
plan was "superior because it abolishes corporate and union soft
money, without creating taxpayer-financed elections." 
SEN.
MITCH McCONNELL: Well, first, Gwen, Al Gore talking about campaign finance
reform has about as much credibility as Bonnie and Clyde calling for
banking reform or O.J. Simpson championing victims' rights. But I'll
say this about the Vice President's proposal today, it does get us back
to where liberals have wanted to be for a long time, which is taxpayer
funding of elections. They've always wanted the government to pick up
the tab for political commercials and for buttons and for bumper stickers.
You know, we've sort of gotten away from that in recent years as the
reform has realized how unpopular that was. Surveys indicate that taxpayer
funding of elections is more unpopular than voting for a congressional
pay raise. I'm glad we've gotten back to that. I'm glad that's going
to be the definition of campaign finance reform as we go into the fall
election. I think it's a big winner for Republicans. And I'm really
thrilled that the Vice President's advocating taxpayer funding of elections.
REP.
MARTY MEEHAN: Not exactly true. He said he'd go out and raise it and
the private sector would make contributions and they'd get a tax deduction
for it. But the Vice President also said, I should point out to Senator
McConnell, said that first and foremost the Senate had to pass McCain-Feingold.
That's what the American people are calling for. John McCain's campaign
all across America got people interested in campaign finance reform.
I'm glad the Vice President has brought into the debate more comprehensive
reform because frankly when we offered the bill that passed the House
we put aside comprehensive reform and said let's abolish soft money
first and then we'll come back and look at the comprehensive bill later.
So I think the President -- the Vice President was right to put campaign
finance reform on the front burner. I have worked with him on the Chase-Meehan-McCain-Feingold
bill over the last five years. He's been a supporter of campaign finance
reform. I hope given the fact he's going to make it a priority, we can
get it passed. 
FRED
WERTHEIMER: I think it probably would include presidential campaigns
if they had the funding. And we already have full public financing for
the general election campaigns. But I would like to say, first, that
I think this is an important and positive development in a very long
battle that's been going on. The Vice President has proposed broad reforms,
but they start with immediate enactment of Senator McCain and Senator
Feingold and Marty Meehan and Chris Shays' soft money ban. Soft money
is the most dangerous money in American politics today. Secondly, the
Vice President has said in this speech that, if elected, he would in
effect use all of the powers of the office of the presidency to fight
this battle. Now, no president has ever done that before. 
GWEN
IFILL: Senator McConnell, one of the things you've always mentioned
is that these ideas about controlling campaign spending would violate
Supreme Court free speech restrictions. From what you read today about
what the Vice President proposed, does this withstand that limit? 
REP.
MARTY MEEHAN: Well, first of all, I think the opponents of campaign
finance reform have been in denial about the Supreme Court's position
on the constitutionality of campaign finance reform. The Buckley case
in 1974, clearly said that it was okay to limit contributions in political
campaigns, particularly when you have either corruption or the appearance
of corruption, and the most recent case, Shrink versus Nixon, which
was decided just a short number of weeks ago upheld limits. So I think
this argument about the Supreme Court has been an excuse for the United
States Senate not to pass McCain-Feingold. And, frankly I don't think
there's any constitutional muster at all. With regard to the more comprehensive
proposals, obviously I look forward to working with the Vice President
as President on those proposals, and we'll craft them in such a way
that it will meet constitutional muster. It's a voluntary system. That's
why it passes constitutional muster.
FRED
WERTHEIMER: I think there is. I don't know what the Vice President is
proposing in terms of the primaries, but we have a matching system in
the primaries now. There are changes that need to be made for the presidential
primary system. I mean, one of the great ironies here is that for 25
years, every effort to try to fix the campaign finance law has been
blocked. So you build up problems over time and you don't get to correct
problems that you see. But bottom line: Look, Senator McCain unleashed
a powerful new movement in this presidential campaign. For years I have
been listening to people tell me in Washington that no one in America
cares about this issue. Senator McCain proved that is just wrong. I
think what you see with the Vice President today is more evidence of
the power of this issue. You can fix this system if like-minded Democrats
and Republicans work together to support reform. Frankly, I think we're
very close on that. 
SEN.
MITCH McCONNELL: Well, I don't support eliminating party soft money
but it's also important, you left out part of Governor Bush's proposal.
All of that is tied to getting paycheck protection which means that
union members would no longer be... have their money taken from them
without their permission and spent on causes with which they disagree.
And Gwen, I also want to say something about Fred's suggestion about
my colleague John McCain's campaign, it had very little to do with campaign
finance reform. Take California, for example. Only 4% of the voters
in the California primary thought campaign finance reform was an important
issue. And on that very same day, a scheme, very similar to what the
Vice President announced today with draconian spending limits, taxpayer
funding of elections, was defeated in a referendum by the California
voters over 2 to 1. I mean there is no sentiment out there for the kind
of reform that Al Gore was talking about today, and John McCain's campaign
was built largely on his own personal qualities and his great war record
which attracted a large number of people to his biography. 
GWEN
IFILL: One of the four Senators who endorsed Senator McCain was Senator
Chuck Hagel who now has his own campaign finance proposal on the Hill.
What's the chance of that surviving that would limit but not abolish
soft money contributions?