A Federal three-judge panel has granted a stay in the ruling against the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law. This sets the stage for the Supreme Court to make the final ruling, which the Washington Post believes will come late this year or early next year. Considering yesterday's news that a couple of high court judges want to call it quits, this will only add more drama. Although this decision is about 10 times more important than the Roe v. Wade, I bet Senators will still be more interested in abortion than any other issue when they hold confirmation hearings.
The Supreme Court gets to decide whether political speech in political campaigns is protected. This is at the core of the 1st amendment. For years, judges have read every type of vulgar talk or symbolic representation as free speech, although the founders were only trying to protect political speech. If Congress can actually keep free citizens from running political advertisements, then people really lose the one power they have against the powerful.
This has been sold to the public as a reform to corruption. A bunch of elected officials are saying they cannot be trusted without laws to rein them in. In fact, this is just the sort of law that allows incumbents to be questioned less about their mischief. Every time I hear John McCain say “special interest” I cringe because he’s one of the most powerful people in the entire world, and he acts as if some political action committee is the ruin of our system. He’s just a guy who doesn’t want to be criticized by opponents.
If every political donation is given in the sunshine, with donor and recipient listed, I don’t see how that money can corrupt anyone. We’ll all get to decide if someone is being paid off.
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