After handing down two momentous decisions and taking the summer off, the U.S. Supreme Court returned from summer recess several weeks early to hear arguments Monday pertaining to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly referred to as McCain-Feingold.
The bill, authored by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 1995 and signed into law by President Bush last year, contains two main, controversial stipulations. It prohibits political parties from receiving \soft money,"" or donations to political parties which are not subject to spending and disclosure limits. It also tightens the leash around individuals or organizations buying television ads, according to Jay Heck, executive director of the reform advocacy group Common Cause Wisconsin.
""All it does is put some teeth into existing law and closes these loopholes that allow this money to flow in ways it wasn't supposed to flow,"" he said.
Opponents of the law say that it is a dangerous restriction on the First Amendment right to free speech.
According to the law, corporations or unions will still be able to buy commercial time, but will have to abide by the same rules and regulations that politicians do.
""All these groups will still be able to run these ads ... but they're not going to be [running them] with this unlimited money,"" Heck said.
Heck said he hoped the Supreme Court would vote to uphold the law in its entirety.
""[William H.] Rehnquist and [Sandra Day] O'Connor, two conservative justices, have been consistently supportive of campaign finance reform, and the fact that they did not retire prior to the end of the spring session gives us confidence that McCain-Feingold will be upheld,"" he said.
Ken Goldstein, a UW-Madison professor of political science, said the court will most likely not reach a decision in the coming days, but hopefully will before the end of the year and before the campaign of 2004 gets into full swing.
In a statement released to the press, McCain and Feingold emphasized the importance of limiting the flow of soft money at the federal level.
""A massive legislative record supported taking action to end the soft money system, which is widely perceived as a system of legalized bribery, or perhaps more accurately, legalized extortion,"" the statement read.
According to Goldstein, before McCain-Feingold any amount of soft money could be given from an individual or company to a political cause.
""With soft money, AT&T, Phillip Morris, and Steven Spielberg can write a $5 million check to the Republican or Democratic party,"" Goldstein said.
