Why Campaign
Finance Reform neve/-
Works
Professor Bradley A.
Smith, Wall Street
Journal
Think campaign finance re-
fornl isn't an incumbent pro-
tection racket? Just look at the
spending limits included in
the Shays-Meehen and
McCain-Feingold bills, the
hot "reform" bills on Capitol
Hill.
Shays-Meehan would limit
spending i House races to
$600,000. In 1996, every
House incumbent who spent
, ll.s than $500,000 won com-
pared with 3 percent of chal-
lengers who spent that little.
However, challengers who
spent between $500,000 and
$1 million won 40 percent of
the time while challengers
who spent more than $1 mil-
lion won five of six races.
The McCain-Feingold bill,
which sets spending limits in
Senate races, would yield
similar results. In both 1994
and 1996, every challenger
who spent less than its limits
lost, but every incumbent who
did so won.
The key spending variable
is not incumbent spending, or
the ratio of incumbent to chal-
lenger spending, but the ab-
solute level of challenger
spending. Incumbents begin
races with high name and is-
sue rec'gnition, so added
spending doesn't help them
much. Challengers, however,
need to build that recognition.
Once a challenger has spent
enough to achieve" similar
name and issue recognition,
campaign spending limits
kick in. Meanwhile the in-
cumbent is just beginning to
spend. In other words, just as
a challenger starts to become
competitive, campaign spend-
ing limits choke off political
competition.
...Government is inher-
ently untrustworthy when it
comes to regulating political
speech, and this tendency to
use government power to si-
lence political criticism and
stifle competition is a major
reason why we have the First
Amendment.
The Supreme Court has rec-
ognized the danger that cam-
paign finance regulation
poses to freedom of speech,
and tk)r the past 20 years, be-
ginning with Buckley v.
Valeo, has stuck down many
proposed restrictions on po-
litical spending and advocacy,
including mandatory spend-
ing limits. Supporters of cam-
paign finance reform like to
ridicule Buckley as equating
money with speech. In fact,
Buckley did no such thing.
Instead, Buckley recog-
nized that limiting the amount
of money one can spend on
political advocacy has the ef-
fect of limiting speech. This
is little more than common
sense. For example, the right
to travel would lose much of
its meaning if we limited the
amount that could be spent on
any one trip to $100...Of
course, the purpose of politi-
cal campaigns is to discuss
issues; and the purpose of dis-
cussing issues is to influence
who holds office and what
policies they pursue. Natu-
rally, candidates don't like to
be criticized, especially when
they believe that the criticisms
rely on distortion and dema-
goguery. But the Founders
recognized that government
cannot be trusted to determine
what is "fair" or "unfair"
when it comes to political dis-
cussion. The First Amend-
ment doesn't promise us
speech we like, but the right
to engage in speech that oth-
ers may not like.
Recognizing that many pro-
posed reforms run afoul of the
Constitution, some, such as
former Sen. Bill Bradley and
current House Minority
Leader Richard Gephardt, are
calling for a constitutional
amendment that would, in ef-
fect, amend the irst Amend-
ment to allow government to
regulate political speech more
heavily.
This seems odd, indeed, for
while lift and right have often
battled over the extent to
which the First Amendment
covers cnmmercial speech or
Oriental
Futons • Furniture • Gifts
A Beautiful...
pornography, until now no
now has ever seriously ques-
tioned that it should cover
political speech.
In fact, constitutional or not,
campaign finance reform has
turned out to be bad policy.
For most of our history, cam-
paign were essentially un-
regulated .vet democracy sur-
vived and flourished. How-
ever. since passage of the Fed-
eral Elections Campaign Act
and similar state laws, the in-
fluence of special interests has
grown, voter turnout has
tallen, and incumbents have
become tougher to dislodge.
Low contributions limits have
forced candidates to spend
large amounts of time seeking
funds. Litigation has become
a major campaign tactic, with
ordinary citizens hauled into
court for passing out home-
made leaflets; been restrained
from communicating en-
dorsements to their dues-pay-
ing members.
The reformers' response is
that more regulation is
needed. If only the "loop-
holes" in the system could be
closed, they argue, it would
work. Of course, some of
today's biggest loopholes
were yesterday's reforms.
Political action committees
were an early 1970"s reform
intended to increase the influ-
ence of small donors. Now the
McCain-Feingold bill seeks to
ban them. Soft-money, which
both bills would sharply cur-
tail, was a 1979 reform in-
fended to help pan; ....
in Nrassroots politk
su,.h f get-out-l..-,otc
drives.
When a law is in need of
continual revision to close a
series of ever-changing"loop-
holes," it is probably the law,
and not the people, that is in
error. The most sensible re-
form is a simple one: repeal
of the Federal Election Cam-
paign Act.
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" Pet Care
by Cleo & Brad Conrad
i H I
A renowned pet authority
says that, as in humans, low
levels of physical activity in
pets contribute greatly to
weight problems. As a
result, Waltham, a leading
authority on pet care and
nutrition, has altered its
own dietary guidelines to
recommend lower-calorie
pet foods, and when neces-
sary, decreased amounts of
food per serving.
The change results from
Waltham's research into the
feeding, body weight and
exercise patterns of dogs,
which revealed that most
pets are not being exercised
the 60 minutes per day as
was previously thought and
this lack of activity is not
being considered when por-
tioning meals.
Waltham scientists
attribute the level of pet
inactivity to societal
changes and technological
advances, with decreased
human activity levels being
passed along to our canine
companions.
(Cats are also at risk here.
Proper attention should be
paid to their diet as well.
Perhaps more physical
activity in the form of play-
time would be helpful also.)
If your pet is overweight,
ask your veterinarian for a
recommendation on what to
do to help the pet lose those
unwanted pounds. There
are special foods available,
both commercially and
through veterinarians that
are wonderful for this, with-
out endangering nutrition.
O 199'7 Kin 8 Features Synd., Inc.
Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, March 27, 1997 7
i ii ,ll
New Fire Chief
Galen "Hank" Messer of Shoshone Was recently
named fire cheif of the Southern Inyo Fire Protec-
tion District. The district serves Shoshone, Tecopa
and the surrounding area. Hank is a native of
Shoshone. He spent nine years in the U.S. Army
and is currently empolyed by the Inyo County Road
Department.,
