Federal Election Commission must not weaken soft money ban

The presence of soft money in politics hurts Democrats and Republicans equally. Democrats are criticized as puppets of labor unions, while Republicans are often considered to be in the pocket of huge corporations. For the past several years, some politicians have been working to get soft money out of politics. The work of Shays, Meehan, McCain and Feingold has finally succeeded, but now the Federal Election Commission is trying to short-circuit their success by opening up loopholes in the law, which will go into effect Nov. 6.

The FEC controls regulation of the law, but its proposals for enforcement would not keep soft money completely out of politics, which was the bill's intent. The bill's sponsors in the House are suing in federal court and plan to introduce a House resolution expressing Congress' condemnation. Under the FEC regulations, the only way a candidate could specifically violate a soft money solicitation ban would be to specifically ask for it. This isn't going to stop soft money, it's just going to make politicians more deceptive about acquiring it.

Some have claimed that this is a free speech issue, but we hold that bribery has never been constitutionally protected free speech. Directly buying a politician's vote is illegal, so why should indirectly purchased influence be protected?

The intent of the bill was not to make it trickier to get soft money into politics. The intent was to ban it. Loopholes not only allow crafty candidates to circumvent the bill, they also tie up courts that must waste time analyzing which cases are acceptable and which are forbidden.

The FEC is a servant of the people and must realize that they must enforce a complete ban on soft money in politics.
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