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Guest Commentary: April 5, 2001
A View of the Post McCain-Feingold World: Who Wins?
The Honorable Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
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The theory of this bill is that there is too much money in politics, in spite of the fact that last year Americans spent more on potato chips than they did on politics.
Then the other theory of the bill is if we can't squeeze all the money out of politics, at least we can get at that odious "soft money." Well, I think it is important for our colleagues to know that the average soft money contribution to the Republican Senatorial Committee last year was $520. That is about one-tenth of 1 percent of the total amount of money we raised. The largest contribution to either the Republican National Committee or the Republican Senatorial Committee was $250,000. Admittedly, that is a lot of money, but any one of those donations would only have amounted to one-half of 1 percent of what was raised by the committees.
We had an opportunity to recognize that there is nothing inherently evil about non-Federal money and that the only issue really the Senate was trying to address was the size of the contributions; we could have dealt with that in the Hagel amendment, but that was defeated.
Now other countries, many of them allies of ours, unburdened by the First Amendment, have squeezed the money all the way out of politics. A good example of that is the Japanese. The Japanese have gotten all the money out of politics. Let me tell you what it is like to run for office in Japan. The Government determines how many days you can campaign, the number of speeches you can give, the places you can speak, the number of handbills or bumper stickers you can hand out, and the number of megaphones you get -- one, one megaphone per candidate. This was all in response to the need, it was widely perceived, to get money out of politics so people's view of the parliament would go up.
Well, after passing all of these draconian measures, now 70 percent of the Japanese people have no confidence in the legislature and turnout continues to decline. So it is obvious that had no impact whatsoever.
What we have done here, in an effort to get money out of politics, is to take the parties out of politics. . . . Let me briefly touch again on what we have done.
In a 100-percent "hard money" world, this would be the impact on the party committees. Looking at the last cycle, last year, if you just applied the current system, the Republican National Committee had $75 million in net hard money to spend on its candidates; under McCain-Feingold, it would have had $37 million. The Democratic National Committee under the current system had $48 million net hard money for candidate efforts; under McCain-Feingold, it would have had $20 million. The Republican Senatorial Committee had net hard money to spend on candidates of $14 million; under McCain-Feingold, it would have had $1 million. The Democratic Senatorial Committee had $6 million hard money; under McCain-Feingold, it would have had $800,000. And over on the House side -- a real disaster. Under the current law, the Republican Congressional Committee had $22 million net hard money; the Democratic committee over in the House, minus $7 million. Under McCain-Feingold both of them would have been substantially below water: $13 million in the case of the congressional committee on the Republican side and $20 million on the Democratic side.
In a 100-percent hard money world, as defined by McCain-Feingold, what we will do is take none of the money out of politics; we will just take the parties out of politics.
And when we take the parties out of politics, what is the impact of that?
The party is the one entity in America that will support a challenger. Parties are filters. They will support a Republican whether he is a liberal Republican or a conservative Republican. Interest groups won't always do that. Parties will go to bat for their members no matter what.
If we look at the upcoming 2002 cycle, the coordinated expenditure limit for Senate campaigns will be $15 million. Applying the new McCain-Feingold standard, the Republican Senatorial Committee and Democratic Senatorial Committee will be able to fund the coordinated expenditures in North Carolina. That is about it.
In addition to that, in this new world with substantially fewer federal hard dollars, the national committees will have to do a lot more. To provide some examples: All the redistricting efforts by both national parties will have to be paid for with 100-percent hard dollars; new responsibilities paid for with 100-percent hard dollars. All of the national party's get-out-the-vote, voter registration, and voter identification efforts will have to be paid for with 100-percent hard dollars. Any support from national party committees to state and local candidates will have to be 100-percent hard dollars. I would venture to say that the national conventions, which the press has declared boring for some time now, are probably a thing of the past.
Host committees for national conventions are abolished. Last year it took each party $80 million to put on their national conventions. They got $15 million from the Treasury. All the rest of it was this odious soft money which is going to be abolished. In order to continue to put on the national conventions in hard dollars, the two committees will have to come up with about $60 million each in hard dollars to put on the national conventions.
My guess is they will decide they might as well let the national conventions become a relic of the past because they will not be able to afford to put on the conventions and also help the candidates. Given that choice, they clearly will want to help the candidates.
In addition to that, McCain-Feingold is so sweeping it is likely to preclude Senators from raising money for churches and charities because there is written into the bill an effort to restrict the ability to raise money for 501(c)s. A query: Will Senator McCain or I be able to raise money for the International Republican Institute or Senator Kennedy raise money for the Special Olympics? I doubt it.
Who wins?
As I said the other day, who wins are people such as Jerome Kohlberg. This is the billionaire who has decided this is going to be his legacy. This is the full page ad he ran in the Washington Post the other day on behalf of this legislation. I suspect a lot of the lobbyists out in the hall right off the Senate floor are either on his payroll directly or indirectly. People such as Jerome Kohlberg and the big charitable foundations are underwriting the reform movement, hand in hand with the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, which have editorialized on this subject an average of once every 6 days over the last 27 months.
At least in the Senate, they are going to get their way shortly, but this new world won't take a penny out of politics, not a penny. It will all be spent. It just won't be spent by the parties. It will be spent by the Jerome Kohlbergs of the world and all of the interest groups out there. As everyone knows, the restrictions on those interest groups will be struck down in court, if we get that far.
Welcome to the brave new world where the voices of parties are quieted, the voices of billionaires are enhanced, the voices of newspapers are enhanced, and the one entity out there in America, the core of the two-party system, that influence is dramatically reduced.
Note: This column has been adapted from a speech Sen. McConnell delivered on the floor of the Senate, April 2, 2001.
 How to contact Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)
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