Campaign Finance Reform

Your editorial, "Good government wins," (April 15) falls short of the mark. Bestowing kudos to the General Assembly for passing legislation that makes campaign finance more helpful in "restoring integrity to the political process" is, with all due respect, misguided. As you point out, these reforms are offset with other provisions which result in a process that facilitates throwing more money into the political arena instead of getting money out. The actions of the General Assembly with regard to campaign finance reform bring to mind the following analogy.

Your editorial, "Good government wins," (April 15) falls short of the mark. Bestowing kudos to the General Assembly for passing legislation that makes campaign finance more helpful in "restoring integrity to the political process" is, with all due respect, misguided. As you point out, these reforms are offset with other provisions which result in a process that facilitates throwing more money into the political arena instead of getting money out. The actions of the General Assembly with regard to campaign finance reform bring to mind the following analogy.

Democracy has been called a government of laws, not of men; but who makes the laws that govern democracy? Not you, me, or our fellow citizens — at least, not according to the five-justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court, who continue to chip away at our authority to govern ourselves. We must reclaim that authority soon or risk losing it forever. On June 27, the five conservative justices struck down an attempt by the state of Arizona to preserve fair and meaningful participation in its elections.

The title of your recent editorial on campaign finance reform should have been "Big government wins" ("Good government wins," April 15). Higher taxes and fees, more spending and less control over their lives by legal, law-abiding citizens creates less freedom for a people. The good news is that incarcerated inmates can kill anyone they want in prison with no fear of additional penalties other than having their TV privileges taken away. I am also sure the criminals who use guns are happy after gun control legislative passed without any mention of them.

According to Ross Perot, the "best thing" for the country would be for Congress to enact lobbying and campaign finance reforms by year's end. And, he says, if he were asked to head up a commission to recommended such reforms, he would accept. Such legislation is unlikely. The Senate passed lobbying reform legislation, but the House leadership says it probably won't get to it till next year. As for campaign finance reform, that appears even more unlikely.As for a commission that would propose an omnibus bill that the Congress and president could accept or reject on all or nothing basis, that might still become a reality.

WASHINGTON -- Once again, campaign finance reformers will make a major effort starting this week to close off one key spigot in the mushrooming flow of special-interest money into the election process before next year's presidential race.House Speaker Dennis Hastert has agreed to call up the reform bill co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Christopher Shays and Democratic Rep. Martin Meehan that would ban "soft" money -- unregulated contributions that now go to state political parties but regularly are diverted to help presidential candidates.

WASHINGTON -- McCainism, the McCarthyism of today's "progressives," involves, as McCarthyism did, the reckless hurling of imprecise accusations. Then the accusation was "communism!" Today it is "corruption!" Pandemic corruption of "everybody" by "the system" supposedly justifies campaign-finance reforms. Those reforms would subject the rights of political speech and association to yet further government limits and supervision, by restricting the political contributions and expenditures that are indispensable for communication in modern society.

Washington -- REMEMBER the case of the Keating Five? That was the one in which, among other things, five senators who had received large campaign contributions from a moneybags developer named Charles Keating were called on the senatorial carpet for having interceded in his behalf with federal savings-and-loan regulators. It was supposed to, like Watergate in 1972, trigger real campaign finance reform by providing an example of the corruption of the existing system.Now listen to Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, chief opponent of the Democratic-sponsored reform that has passed the Senate and author of a Republican version that failed: "With the Keating case over . . . the momentum of the legislation is not as great as it was last year."

WASHINGTON -- One day Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., announces plans to hire a staff of 80 to investigate fund-raising by the Democratic National Committee. Then the committee votes 52 subpoenas. And we learn that the Justice Department has 25 lawyers working on the same question.In the House, another Republican-led investigation headed by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana also begins issuing subpoenas. And the Washington Post tells us that the Justice Department is looking into the possibility that China may have steered some contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign last year.

With most of the heavy lifting behind them, Maryland legislators will convene Monday for a final frenzy of lawmaking before the 2013 General Assembly session adjourns at midnight. Bills that could affect every dog owner and every driver who talks on a cell phone still await approval, as does legislation that would craft tighter rules on speed cameras, legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and put new restrictions on government speed camera programs. Most lawmakers said these remaining issues and scores more will likely find resolution by the end of the day. "We're in pretty good shape," House Speaker Michael E. Busch said as his chamber adjourned Saturday afternoon.

The Senate gave its preliminary approval Tuesday to a comprehensive campaign finance reform bill after refusing to strip out a provision letting counties set up their own public-financing systems.  The measure, which has already passed the House, could receive a final vote as early as Wednesday. It would need to be reconciled with a slightly different House version.  Among other things, the legislation would raise campaign donation limits that haven't changed in two decades, curb giving through multiple corporate entities to evade those limits, increase reporting requirements and give the State Board of Elections new enforcement powers.

Marylanders will soon have an opportunity common in a country other than their own: the right to veto a legislature's product. This tool, the voter referendum, is an important right, since two cure-alls of the 1970s, campaign finance "reform" and strict reapportionment, have delivered the legislature into the hands of reliable partisans and the "bundlers" of interest-group campaign contributions. The referendum is not to be confused with the initiative - California's gift to misgovernment - nor with ad hoc plebiscites, a traditional tool of dictators.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s column on the Occupy movement summed up the us vs. them Republican party platform (Occupy movement got America wrong," Sept. 23). The dismissive notion the Occupy movement's goals were bigger government and entitlements from "cradle to grave" is grossly inaccurate. Though alien to Mr. Ehrlich, many Americans were and are motivated to speak out for a sustainable planet, a government "for the people" rather than corporate interests, and civil equality for all. While greed motivates some Americans, Mr. Ehrlich, you are not the majority.

A commission set up to advise the General Assembly how to reform its laws governing campaign financing edged closer to consensus on some key issues but has a lot of ground to cover at its final meeting scheduled for Sept. 27. The Commission to Study Campaign Finance Law reached a clear consensus on some enforcement issues -- extending the statute of limitations for misdemeanor violations of campaign finance laws from two years to three and allowing the State Board of Elections to issue civil citations for some less severe violations without having to refer matters to the State Prosecutors' Office.

This afternoon, Gov.Martin O'Malleyplans to sign what may be the most significant step toward increasing transparency in Maryland's system of campaign finance in years: a requirement that those who contribute more than $500 to a single candidate during an election cycle list their occupation and employer. That's a good thing; it will give the public a much better idea of who is backing candidates for office and why. However, the fact that this step only brings Maryland up to some semblance of the standard the federal government has employed since the 1970s, and a majority of other states have long held as well, shows just how far the state has to go if voters are to have confidence that the entire campaign finance system isn't just a means for special interests to buy influence.

I urge my fellow citizens not to give in to despair over the choices being offered in this year's presidential elections. As an independent who is fiscally conservative, socially liberal and believes there is an appropriate role for government in our lives, I ask you to consider Buddy Roemer for president. We need economic reform, regulatory reform, tax reform, health care reform and education reform. But unless we achieve campaign finance reform, there's not chance of getting sensible reforms in any of these areas.

It has been two years since the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and we are only now just beginning to see how its overturning of a century of campaign finance law is distorting the electoral process. Rather than acting truly independently of campaigns, as the majority of justices envisioned, these entities exclusively act on behalf of individual candidates - and are typically run by former aides. Rather than encouraging the universal right of free speech, the ruling has had the effect of providing a megaphone for the rich to drown out all other voices.