Campaign finance reform ignored

By Yael Kohen

Daily Staff Reporter

For U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and John McCain, it's not hard to get excited about campaign finance reform. But the average American sometimes tunes out one of the most pertinent issues in this year's election.

Since McCain decided to center his platform around campaign finance reform during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, the issue has spread like a plague through political rhetoric this year. Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore told The Michigan Daily during a roundtable discussion last month that the issue is one cause of apathy among young voters.

The Center for Responsive Politics released a study yesterday stating that parties have spent a record amount of soft money in this year's election cycle, said Brad Jaffe, a spokesman for Feingold (D-Wis.).

Feingold co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill which would limit the use of soft money during elections.

While federal law caps the amount of money candidates can spend, soft money is unregulated campaign contributions collected by political parties. Issue ads in which interest groups state their position without specifically telling voters to support a particular candidate is considered soft money.

"The Center for Responsive Politics study confirms that the proliferation of soft money is driving our campaign finance system completely out of control," Feingold said in a written statement. "At the very least, the huge amounts of cash pouring into these elections from special interests creates the perception of corruption and further erodes the public's trust of government."

A ban on soft money and the public financing of congressional campaigns seem to be the two most pressing campaign reform issues addressed in the month's leading up to this year's election.

"The criticism is that federal election law allows federal parties to use soft money," Federal Elections Commission spokesman Ian Stirton said.

"There's not necessarily a problem with having soft money if we knew who the soft money was coming from," University communications studies Prof. Michael Traugott said, adding that soft money "has different disclosure requirements."

"For issue-based spending there are no disclosure requirements," he said. A critical problem with soft money spending has fallen under the issue ads that support a certain position.

"The ads are not allowed to say 'Vote for' in conjunction with a candidate's name. And in exchange for that they don't have to report it," Traugott said.

Since McCain lost the GOP nomination, the call for campaign finance reform has quieted. But the Arizona senator has left his mark on the election trail and the term campaign finance reform has been ingrained in the minds of Americans.

Several court cases that have tried to determine whether soft money was being used by campaigns but the Supreme Court has not yet made a ruling about the legality of soft money uses, Stirton said.

Public financing of congressional elections has also entered the spotlight in this year. While the presidential election is publicly financed - meaning candidates receive federal matching funds or grants for both the primary and general elections - congressional elections are not.

Third parties must have support from at least 5 percent of the population to be eligible for federal grants.

Publicly financing congressional campaigns would help challengers mount a campaign against an incumbent by offering more money for resources, Traugott said, adding that it would be "useful democratically." Challengers could run a stronger campaign and hold incumbents accountable for past decisions by giving them more authority, he said.

Although public financing of congressional campaigns is something Traugott favors personally, he said Congress is unlikely to approve it because it would work against the very people who are passing it.