Campaign finance "reform" bites it proponents

Matt Welch:

SIERRA, a glossy magazine published by the Sierra Club, has a Web site called "The Bush Archives" at sierraclub.org/sierra/bush_archive.asp. There you can find links to 62 original articles criticizing George W. Bush’s impact on Mother Nature. Entries include "The Assault on Wild America: Mapping the Bush administration’s damage," from March 2004; "W Watch," a recurring feature since May 2003; and a pre-2000 election package rooting for candidate Dubya and his fellow Republicans to lose. "We could win this time," the editors insisted.

Turns out they could lose much more than they feared. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill -- which the Sierra Club lobbied for with great enthusiasm -- was finally signed into law in March 2002. That law was upheld by the Supreme Court in its December 2003 ruling McConnell v. FEC, and at press time the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) was on the verge of establishing specific new interpretive guidelines for how Americans can legally raise money and make public statements that could affect national elections.

According to the strictest of scenarios drawn up in the FEC’s April draft proposal, issue-oriented advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association could suddenly find themselves regulated by the same rules that govern "express advocacy" groups such as STOPHillaryPAC or the Committee for a Democratic Majority.

That would mean no more contributions from foundations, corporations, or unions; no more personal gifts larger than $5,000; and no more anonymous donors, among other fund raising restrictions. To avoid this fate, many of these groups -- known as 501(c)s, for the section in the tax code that defines their tax-free status -- would need to show that they do not "promote, support, attack or oppose" specific candidates in federal elections, which is the standard the Supreme Court’s McConnell v. FEC decision established to determine whether state political parties and political action committees warrant regulation.


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