As McCain fights, NRA yawns

After boiling away the rhetoric surrounding campaign finance reform and getting an idea of what the buzz is all about, it's clear that supporters of the current McCain-Feingold legislation, just approved by the Senate, are crusaders against plutocracy. The only problem is that they're missing the target.

ALEX WONG/NEWSMAKERS The president may still veto former rival John McCain's pet bill.

The current bill sneaking its way through the Congress, impressively called the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Campaign Finance Reform Bill (named after three senators who have taken enough special interest money to realize there's a problem with this), is a valiant effort to preserve democracy. Despite the admonishing cries of libertarians, campaign finance reform will neither limit freedom of speech nor ruin private business. Alas, it is a simple effort to put the voice of the average citizen back into government by reining in the tempting influence of big money interests. Nonetheless, this concept is sufficiently radical in today's political environment to cause Feingold to remark that enacting reform "is a matter of guts."

Feingold was gutsy enough recently to let us all know the naked truth: "There is too much money swimming around in Washington deciding what legislation is coming up, and your voice is being stifled." The senator even went on to proclaim that "the time has come to take back your government." Such belligerent words led Senator John Breaux (D-LA)—an opponent of campaign finance reform—to remark that many Republicans and Democrats were now fighting for reform with "real bullets." While this is an unusually creative metaphor for Washington mudslinging, the senator shouldn't worry about getting hit any time soon.

This is because the current reform legislation leaves open a gaping loophole that threatens to frustrate the entire effort. While the McCain-Feingold-Cochran bill would ban direct soft money donations to the political parties by corporations or special interest groups, it would not affect "hard money" donations. Assuming it passes, this means that businesses, unions, and other interest groups may no longer buy off political parties directly. But don't get too excited. They'll just have to send their money through middlemen, or, as they're better known, "political action committees" (PACs)—money-funneling groups that are exempt from restrictions under the current bill.

PACs are coalitions of people aligned around a particular issue or ideology. PACs exist for every advocacy cause under the sun, from animal rights to gun rights. As PACs will not be prevented or limited from giving money under the McCain-Feingold-Cochran bill, now, with extra funding from special interests, they will give tons of money to political candidates. The result, of course, is that PACs—laden with corporate and special interest money—will become the new constituency of politicians. Some "real bullets."

Special interest groups and big firms are not at all alarmed by campaign finance reform, which should drive home the point that the current bill isn't really going to do all that much. The National Rifle Association, a big soft money donor in the past, has sat back and yawned while campaign finance "reform" has made its way through Congress, not even bothering to issue a statement opposing McCain-Feingold-Cochran. Another soft money donor, the environmental group Sierra Club, claimed this past week that "this [legislation] won't affect us much." No it won't—not when you can simply redirect your money through a PAC.

So the ultimate result of the current campaign finance reform will not really require guts after all. Rather than cleaning out big money from politics, the current campaign finance legislation, if it passes, will simply redirect its flow. Too bad. Someday, maybe reformers will fight with "real bullets." 

Daniel Kruger is a freshman in Timothy Dwight.

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