Soft Money

WASHINGTON - The new campaign finance law came under a strong attack at the Supreme Court yesterday, with lawyers for the statute's opponents warning that it would weaken the national political parties, intrude on the states' electoral systems and infringe on the free speech of corporations and labor unions. While defenders of the law offered abundant counter-arguments during the court's unusual special sitting - the first time since the Watergate tapes case in 1974 that the justices interrupted their summer recess to hear an argument - its fate appeared highly uncertain.

WASHINGTON -- During the 1990s, television viewers knew an election was approaching when ads urged them to call Candidate X and tell him Y. In 1996, for example, Montana viewers were told: "Call Bill Yellowtail and tell him to support family values." This was the tag line for an ad that said Yellowtail, an environmentalist and a Democratic candidate for Congress, had taken "a swing at his wife," failed to pay child support and had been convicted of a felony. It was no surprise to anyone that Yellowtail lost the election.

WASHINGTON - Democrats and Republicans have found at least one issue that unites them in the 2004 presidential campaign. It's not terrorism or taxes. It's "soft money" political contributions. Both parties say corporations, unions and wealthy individuals should be allowed to bankroll their national conventions next year with six- and seven-figure checks and other expensive gifts despite the new federal law that aims to curb such political largess. This week, the Federal Election Commission will consider petitions from the two major parties to allow committees organized to hold the conventions - in New York City for the GOP and in Boston for the Democrats - to raise soft money, the unlimited contributions given for party-building activities.

WASHINGTON - The federal ban on "soft money" political contributions will survive - for now. That was the gist of a decision yesterday by a federal court to suspend its recent ruling on the new campaign law until the Supreme Court decides the case. As a result, political parties, presidential and congressional candidates, and interest groups will have to abide by all provisions of the law, even though the lower court had found some unconstitutional. The ruling was a victory for the Justice Department and the law's congressional sponsors, led by Sens.

WASHINGTON -- Much hand-wringing is going on over a three-judge panel's decision upholding key parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act authored by Sens. John McCain and Russell D. Feingold but also creating a loophole that aggressive fund-raisers might well drive a Brinks truck through. The federal judges' ruling confirmed the new law's basic ban on raising and spending unregulated or "soft" money by federal candidates, officeholders and congressional campaign committees. It also upheld the ban on state and national parties spending soft money for ads supporting or attacking specific federal candidates, including "sham" ads that advocate issue positions but really are attacks on candidates who hold (or don't hold)

WASHINGTON - As the national political parties and candidates prepare for next year's elections, the campaign fund-raising rules are shifting like sand in a windstorm. "There's a certain amount of blindness here right now," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, an Illinois Democrat and prolific fund-raiser for his party. "You don't know whether you are operating under old rules or new rules or the old new rules." With the opinion issued Friday by a three-judge panel, a new campaign finance law, which had banned political parties from raising unlimited "soft money" from wealthy people, corporations and unions, has been tossed out. But the judges said soft money - contributions given to a political party, not to the campaign of a specific candidate - still may not be spent for television ads supporting or opposing federal candidates.

WASHINGTON - Striking down key portions of a politically popular law, a three-judge panel ruled yesterday that a ban on "soft money" contributions from corporations and unions to political parties was unconstitutional, ensuring that the question of how federal campaigns are financed will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. After years of debate, Congress approved the landmark campaign finance law last year with the goal of limiting the corrupting influence of money in politics. The law - known by the names of its primary sponsors, Sens.

WASHINGTON - Seeking to overturn the nation's month-old campaign finance law, opponents of the new rules told a federal court yesterday that the limits trample the free-speech rights of political parties and urged the judges to overturn the hard-won statute. Bobby Burchfield, an attorney representing the Republican National Committee, told a special three-judge panel that the law, which took effect Nov. 6, could "stifle" democracy by limiting the parties' ability to educate voters and encourage people to go to the polls.

WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. John McCain is not a man to thumb your nose at. He made that clear once again the other day in serving notice to would-be scuttlers of the new campaign finance law he spent seven years helping to steer through Congress. Barely more than a week after the law went into effect, Mr. McCain fired the opening volley of a new drive to confront artful dodging by the national parties, including his own, and others to evade the "soft money" ban. The ban is the core reform of the law that he, Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut pushed through earlier this year.

WASHINGTON -- An election reform group recently called for abolishing the Federal Election Commission, the agency that oversees how campaigns are financed and conducted, on the grounds that it is woefully ineffective. The reformers would replace it with a single administrator. That proposal has a long way to go, but the FEC has provided plenty of new ammunition to the reformers with its latest regulations for implementing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law passed in March. Four Republicans and one Democrat on the six-member commission last weekend approved regulations that amount to creating a gaping loophole in the law's prime provision of barring unregulated "soft" money in federal elections, the reformers say, with reason.