you just loast some of your free speech rights yesterday america, how do you feel?

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

The Senate, with no small amount of help from Republicans, has passed this absurd campaign finance reform law. It reforms nothing, my friends. It was simply designed to make it harder for an outsider to challenge an incumbent in a federal election.

I know … we’ve almost run this story to death. Let me just give you a quick example of how this law will work.

Let’s pick an issue. Any issue will do … but we’ll go with Social Security reform. Let’s say that your incumbent Senator, a Democrat, is opposed to pending legislation that would allow you to take your Social Security “contributions” and invest them in a private account. Let’s also say that your local newspaper is also steadfastly opposed to this bill. The newspaper is running editorials every single day against the reform legislation and in favor of the Democratic incumbent.

You like the Social Security reform bill. You want to support the Libertarian Senate challenger because he also supports Social Security reform. You decide that you want to run a series of advertisements supporting your candidate on the local television news. The ads are going to cost you about $40,000 for one placement in the evening news every day for the week preceding the election. You get five friends to chip in some cash --- and you go to the television station to buy the advertisements.

So far this all sounds very American, doesn’t it? You are supporting a particular cause and a particular candidate --- and you want to express your support in a paid political advertisement on television.

Sorry .. you can’t do it. Those advertisements you want to run would be illegal under this bill the Senate passed yesterday.

This is reform?

 

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

heres another article on it different source
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57598-2002Mar20.html
WASHINGTON –– Congress approved the most sweeping changes to the nation's campaign finance system since the Watergate scandals on Wednesday, ending years of gridlock and clearing the bill for President Bush's signature. Critics promised a swift court challenge.

Final passage came on a 60-40 Senate vote, a relatively comfortable margin that belied previous combat on a measure designed to reduce the role of special interest money in politics.

The House passed the bill last month on a vote of 240-189. Bush is expected to sign the legislation, although White House officials have not said so explicitly.

"With the stroke of the president's pen, we will eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars of unregulated soft money that has caused Americans to question the integrity of their elected representatives," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., whose dogged pursuit of the issue helped fuel his rise to national prominence.

"The status quo is not acceptable and today it will end," added Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

After years of delay, Republican opponents offered congratulations to the bill's supporters – and said they would see them in court.

"I am consoled by the obvious fact that the courts do not defer to the Congress on matters of the Constitution," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the measure's most prominent Senate critic.

"We have allowed a few powerful editorial pages to prod us into infringing the First Amendment rights of everyone but them," he said, contending the measure would prove detrimental to the political parties.

The centerpiece of the bill is a ban on unlimited "soft money" donations to the national political parties, typically five- and six-figure donations made by corporations, unions and individuals.

State and local parties could accept up to $10,000 a year in soft money per donor for voter registration and other party-building affecting federal candidates.

Another key provision would ban the use of soft money to buy "issue ads" within 60 days of an election or 30 days of a primary. These ads are customarily purchased by political parties or outside groups. And while they stop short of expressly advocating the victory or defeat of a candidate, they often are harshly critical.

Individuals would be permitted to donate up to $2,000 to presidential or congressional candidates, a doubling of the present $1,000 limit.

The changes will take effect on Nov. 6, meaning the parties can continue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in soft money to support candidates in this fall's mid-term elections.

The Senate's vote capped a decade of struggle on the issue.

In 1992 President George H.W. Bush vetoed legislation written by a Democratic-controlled Congress to provide partial public financing for candidates who agreed to limit spending.

In 1994 the House and Senate both passed legislation but couldn't agree on a compromise.

McCain teamed with Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., beginning in 1995 to try again, joined in the House by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass.

The House passed Shays-Meehan bills twice in the late 1990s over the objections of GOP leaders. But McCain and Feingold were stymied by multiple Republican-led filibusters in the Senate.

That changed after the 2000 elections, when Democrats gained Senate seats, and McCain returned from his presidential campaign with enhanced political standing.

With Daschle playing a key role, the Senate passed a version of the legislation last year. The effort nearly blew up in the House last summer in a procedural fight, but supporters forced the bill back onto the floor last month, and prevailed.

While gridlock persisted on Congress, scandals followed one after the other in politics.

Feingold detailed them in his remarks before a final vote – the White House coffees and the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers of the Clinton years; former Vice President Al Gore's visit to the Buddhist temple; revelations that the Chinese military had tried to influence American domestic politics.

Add to that the collapse of Enron, the energy trading company whose top officials were political donors, and even critics said McCain, Feingold, Shays and Meehan had the momentum they needed to prevail.

"I think we have a chance to address this constant scandal-waiting-to-happen," said Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., shortly before the final vote. "We are making headway I think to do something to reduce the cynicism in this country."

But Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, eagerly lent support to the opponents.

"This bill is blatantly unconstitutional," he said, referring to limitations placed on certain types of donations. The measure is "anti-democratic," as well, he said, and will concentrate power "in fewer and fewer and fewer hands."

In one White House meeting in advance of the vote, senior advisers briefly discussed whether to stage a signing ceremony. They reluctantly decided that Bush had no other choice, according to two participants who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The president has been lukewarm about the bill, which is opposed by most senior GOP officials, but has chosen not to spend the political capital needed to fight it.

 

[bored1]

Wayne Lapierre of the NRA gave up the fight and decided that they will fight it in the courts.........It will be in the Supreme Court in no time........What amazes me is the hypocricy of McCain he took money from Global Crossing......and was part of the Keating 5 probably got Enron money too. Amazing how fast they can pass selfserving shit,but cant straighten out social security

 

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

Amazing how fast they can pass selfserving shit,but cant straighten out social security

nobody wants to fix the social security, its to much of a vote buy as it is now.


smae thing in canada, the populus votes who can make the biggest promises about fixing it and who can tell the most lies of how the other guys are going to ruin it. Thats why the liberal party in canada runs rampant without any real opposition

 

[bored1]

nobody wants to fix the social security, its to much of a vote buy as it is now.


smae thing in canada, the populus votes who can make the biggest promises about fixing it and who can tell the most lies of how the other guys are going to ruin it. Thats why the liberal party in canada runs rampant without any real opposition

For years the dems have used SS as a weapon to scare retired people in the states...Those evil republicans are gona steal it etc.Well its never happened and it wont happen...Still it needs to be reformed and the pros and cons of reform should be discussed in a rational manner........If it isnt fixed the day will come when its to late......Probably about the same time I want to retire

 

[Ishmael]

Not over yet

Mitch McConnel of the Senate is filing suit tomorrow. The flood of litigation will be enormous, and I don't think the AG's staff is going to argue for this either. Although it's going to cost some money, I think that Bush's decision to put this before the court and make it go away forever may be the wisest plan.

What ever happened to the "lefts" mantra of the sixties? "I'll lay my body down before I'll give up the right to free speech."

Such disengenious dorks.

Ishmael

"Cause du jour is like soup du jour. Both are usually rotten in two days."

 

[SINthysist]

Parties have become more important than the constitution.
Started when Senators became representatives of the mob rather than the States.
Continues in the notion that the populated areas, by force of number, should have say over the unpopulated areas.
And bolstered by the courts deciding that they are not the interpreters of the law, but the law...

Should we just not have a daily election, or poll,

How do you wish to decide this matter today?

Like an Afghan tribal council?

 

[CelestialBody]

The attorney general does not over see