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A recent letter printed in The State newspaper challenged me to vote for “real” campaign finance reform while curiously excusing Senator Fritz Hollings as having “good, sensible, and patriotic reason” for voting against McCain-Feingold, the Senate version. I say to the writer, and others of similar persuasion, that reform can be a thing of beauty. But as with beauty it is always in the eyes of the beholder. Take a look at the following scenarios.
Jim Jones, a retired banker and Jane Doe, a former professor are both running for Congress. Jim Jones announces that he will not accept contributions from political action committees (PACs). Jane Doe decides to accept PAC contributions.
Because Jim Jones does not accept PAC contributions, the Directors of ABC Corporation invite him to lunch in their Boardroom. During lunch all 25 Directors, longtime friends and acquaintances of Jones, give him $1000 each, and another $1000 each on behalf of their spouses - the maximum allowed for individuals and their spouses. Jim Jones leaves with $50,000. Later, an employee of ABC, who has been contributing $5.00 a payday to ABC’s Good Government fund, requests a contribution on behalf of her former teacher, Jane Doe. The Directors of the fund, most of whom are hourly employees, vote to contribute $5,000 to Jane Doe, the maximum allowed for a PAC.
The contributions to Jim Jones - although perfectly legal - are in my view, among the reasons the financing of campaigns has gotten out of hand. But under “reform” measures currently being considered by Congress, Jim Jones’ contributions would not only continue to be legal, but under some proposals would even be doubled. Some of these same measures would make the contributions to Jane Doe illegal. In others they would remain at status quo. I will vote against any reform measure that keeps Jim Jones situation legal while outlawing, or unduly limiting, Jane Doe’s contributions.
I have a few other concerns with some of these “reform” measures. Court decisions make it very clear that political contributions are a form of speech. Therefore, Congress cannot limit the amount of money candidates and their family members can contribute to their campaigns. Do wealthy Americans have more free speech than other Americans?
There are other unseemly proposals masquerading as “reforms.” One of them requires that candidates for Congress get the majority of their contributions from the districts they represent. Who believes that the candidate running to represent Hollywood, South Carolina will be on equal financial footing with the candidate running to represent Hollywood, California?
Congress - feeling that big spenders and wealthy candidates had too much advantage, and that there was not enough transparency in the system - made some changes in 1974. Corporations found that these changes allowed them to consolidate their influence, and working men and women soon realized that they could somewhat level the playing field by pooling their resources. The result was a proliferation of political action committees. Now all of a sudden, PACs have become bad and, in the minds of some, should be outlawed. I will not vote for any measures that unduly limit the collective voices of working men and women, especially while enhancing the voices of the wealthy.
I am not opposed to reform, and there are some measures I can, and will support. And I wish I could say that the consequences one can see emanating from many of the so-called reform measures are unintended. Unfortunately, the proponents of these measures not only know the adverse impact their measures will have, but they clearly intend for such impact to occur.
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U.S. Congressman 
