| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
White House outlines defense of campaign finance argumentsCase will be argued before Supreme Court on September 8
From Bill Mears
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Citing decades of federal oversight and intervention, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court this week that Congress had the authority to pass sweeping legislation to curb potential abuses in campaign fund-raising. Lawyers representing the Federal Election Commission filed a nearly 140-page brief with the court on Tuesday, about a month before the justices are to hold a special session on the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA). The 2002 law, known to many as the McCain-Feingold law, took effect the day after the November 2002 elections. Among its many provisions are ones that would ban "soft money," the unlimited and unregulated contributions to national political parties; as well as advocacy ads 60 days before an election. Those ads criticize or support a candidate's stand on an issue. It would also impose contribution limits and donor disclosure requirements. Supporters of the law, including the Bush administration, say it is designed to prevent corruption in politics. Opponents say it would criminalize free speech and association. In his brief outlining the government's position, Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote, "Both in campaign-finance legislation and in a broad range of other laws, Congress has limited the flow of money to federal officers in order to safeguard the integrity of government operations. Because federal elected office-holders are inextricably linked to their political parties, Congress reasonably concluded that large donations to party committees pose a threat of corruption similar to that created by large donations to candidates." The FEC and the Justice Department are the lead defendants, supported by the bill's congressional sponsors and a variety of campaign reform groups. Opponents of BCRA, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and a bipartisan coalition of groups including from the AFL-CIO, the National Rifle Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Republican National Committee, and the California Democratic Party, face a deadline in coming days to file their own briefs. The court has consolidated dozens of challenges to the law, which overhauled much of the nation's election procedures. In a sign of the importance and urgency of the case, the justices will hold four hours of arguments on September 8. The unusual scheduling comes during the court's summer recess, and nearly a month before justices were supposed to resume hearing cases. Court arguments normally last only one hour. Until the Supreme Court rules, the law remains in effect. A decision is expected before the federal primary season gets under way in early 2004. The justices were given authority by Congress to hear the case on an expedited schedule after a lower federal court last month issued a divided opinion. In a sprawling 1,600-page decision May 2, that federal court handed both sides partial victories, upholding the ban on advocacy ads 60 days before an election, but only for ads that are "suggestive of no plausible meaning other than an exhortation to vote for or against a specific candidate." And the judges ruled political parties can still raise and spend soft money for "party building" activities such as get-out-the vote drives and overhead costs. The court said banning such activities would be a violation of free speech. The main case is McConnell v. FEC (02-1674).
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
