The nation has been spared another attempt by liberal busybodies to restrict the First Amendment rights of American citizens to contribute to political candidates of their choice. The attempt by some liberal politicians, with massive support from big media, to put limits on Political Action Committees (PACs) failed in the Senate earlier this month.
Senator David L. Boren’s (D-OK) bill would have reduced to $3,000 the amount each PAC could give to a candidate, and also limit the total each candidate could accept from all PACs to $100,000 for a House race and from $175,000 to $750,000 for a Senate race (depending on the size of the state). His bill will probably rise again in 1986.
For weeks before this bill came to the Senate floor, the American public was treated to advocacy journalism reciting the alleged horrors of PACs. We are supposed to be outraged by the supposedly sinister fact that 4,000 PACs donated $113 million to political candidates in the 1984 elections.
So what! All that money was voluntary. Nobody was forced to give or receive any of it. Americans spend only $1 on PACs for every $75 they spend on tobacco, and only $1 on PACs for every $231 they spend on alcohol.
Furthermore, the $113 million spent voluntarily on PACs is less than the $144 million the taxpayers were forced to spend to pay for mass mailings by Senators and Congressmen to their constituents, most of which are directly related to getting themselves reelected.
Most editorials on PACs start from the assumption that “everybody wants to cut down the enormous cost of political campaigns.” That’s false. “Everybody” doesn’t want that.
Some of us think it’s healthy that $113 million was voluntarily spent by American citizens as their investment in the public officials and public policies that the voters want. This is citizen participation in the process of self-government and the exercise of our First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly.
Senator Boren’s bill claims to be a “reform” of the Federal Election Laws of 1975, which in turn claimed to be “reform” legislation passed in the aftermath of Watergate.
Funny thing, though, the 1975 Election Laws didn’t have anything to do with the abuses of Watergate or the prosecutions that followed it.
The Federal Election Laws were passed in a euphoric effort to eliminate “corruption.” Corruption may be important in the political games played at the local level in some parts of the country, but it was not the issue in Watergate. It is the least of the problems we have with politics in the Federal Government.
The persons who want to restrict PACs complain that campaigning now costs too much. Sure, it costs more than it used to, but so does everything else.
A candidate’s ability to raise funds is a clear indication of his appeal to the voters. If he can’t raise enough money to mount a campaign, it means that not enough voters care enough about his candidacy to help him get elected.
Those who want to restrict PACs argue that, a decade ago, contributions under $100 made up nearly half of all the money given in Congressional races, and now it’s only 19%, so that means “ordinary voters are squeezed out by the fat PACs.” These figures don’t mean that at all. They mean that voters who contribute less than $100 have found a way to pool their resources with other less-than-$100 contributors in order to let their voice be heard at the national level.
When the majority of PAC money came from labor unions, we didn’t hear this propaganda from the press and self-righteous liberal lobbies about how terrible PACs are. It’s only since conservatives discovered that they, too, can have PACs that the liberals are upset.
Liberal Senator Eugene McCarthy, an outspoken defender of our full First Amendment rights to make political contributions, has given us some good advice about his liberal friends. He says, “When liberals turn reformers, beware. Dr. Guillotine’s invention was welcomed by the reformers of the French Revolution. It was new, scientific, fast, clean, certain, and its side effects were minimal.”
Instead of editorializing against the rights of American voters to exercise their full First Amendment rights to contribute to political candidates, it would be more helpful to the political process if newspapers would publish the list of all those who contribute $1,000 or more to each candidate in the newspaper’s Congressional district.
Full disclosure, not limitation, is the best remedy for potential abuses.
