EDITORIALS
EDITORIAL MONEY TALKS The provisions of the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act were complex; so too is the recent Supreme Court decision on the subject. There is a story, doubtless apocryphal, of...
...The purpose of the reform measure was laudable: to reduce the corrupting influence of big money in election campaigns...
...Good and bad arguments seem inextricably mixed, and various parts of the Court's decision go in different directions...
...However, candidates for the presidential nomination in a major party who are eligible for $20 million in public funds can spend no more than that unless they reject public money...
...In the process of shaping the measure, however, the purity of Congressional intentions became badly muddied...
...There is a story, doubtless apocryphal, of a timid curate who was asked by the pastor what he thought of his breakfast egg...
...1, have been gravely hurt, and this at a time when evidence of corruption in corporate slush loads continues to mount...
...At the end of February the Court gave Congress three extra weeks to make over the Federal Election Commission...
...At the same time the Court struck down as unconstitutional all limits on how much can be spent in a campaign for Congress by a candidate or in his behalf, and it struck down nearly all limits on spending in a campaign for the presidency...
...large contributors helped good guy Eugene McCarthy to upset President Johnson in 1968, for example, and he was one of the prime critics of this election law as it was drawn...
...This discrimination against non-incumbents and minor political parties in fact curtailed the public's right to choose freely at the polls...
...wisely...
...That is more or less the way it is with this Supreme Court decision...
...Although the Court said that the members of the Federal Election Commission should be appointed by the President rather than by Congress, it did uphold this and three other key provisions: the principle of public financing, full disclosure of contributions, and limits on direct individual contributions...
...As for the limit of $1000 on individual contribution, the Court seriously weakened this provision of the law by ruling that a contributor can spend unlimited amounts as long as his efforts are not directly coordinated by the candidate-a gaping loophole...
...That is time enough, if Congress acts wisely...
...For the rich the doors are now wide open...
...As far as the House and the Senate are concerned, with all restrictions on these campaigns removed, the ruling will have considerable impact this year...
...the Court struck this provision down as a violation of the First Amendment, equating the use of money with freedom of speech...
...Howard Hughes for president, anyone...
...Admittedly the power of money is not always bad...
...A major drawback in the law was that in effect it aided incumbents and established parties over newcomers, whether individuals or groups...
...What is needed now is a return to the problem in Congress, aimed at keeping what is good and strengthening what is weak-matched at the same time by a vigorous scrutiny by press and public of the Congressional watchdogs themselves...
...Nonetheless, the reform law, like the curate's egg, had its good parts too...
...This means, of course, that a multi-millionaire like Nelson Rockefeller can, if he chooses, speak far louder than anyone else, being able to spend as many millions of his own money as he wishes in an effort to buy the presidency...
...Efforts at election reform, then, if not quite back at square No...
...Still, money power is obviously subject to gross abuse in the elective process, and it should be curbed...
...parts of it, he is supposed to have said, were very good...
...As the law was written, a presidential candidate could not spend more than $50,000 of his own or his immediate family's money...
Vol. 103 • March 1976 • No. 6
